JBL's PartyBox Stage 320 is a powerful speaker with a well-balanced sound and punchy bass, with many features that make me want to host house parties just to have an excuse to use the speaker.
As the name implies, it's a speaker made for parties, meaning it's loud and fun but also has features made to enhance a party atmosphere. You can dabble in being a DJ with the Effect Lab, connect up to two microphones for karaoke, or even play over your music with an electric guitar. I was sent the PartyBox Stage 320 by JBL to review, and though it's not cheap ($599.95), after spending some time with it, I think it's worth every penny.
240 Watts of output power or about 100 decibels of sound
A portable design that makes it easy to carry
Powerful bass
Adjustable EQ
Can have up to two microphones (or one microphone and one electric guitar)
Replaceable battery
Can play with just the power cord (without the battery)
Fun in-app features for parties
Cons
Only IPX4 for splashproof, not waterproof
Heavy at 36.38 lbs
No microphone
Specs
Battery life: Up to 18 hours (3 hours charge time)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4 with Auracast support
Inputs: 2 ¼-inch jacks, 3.5mm aux input and USB-A port
Drivers: Two 6.5-inch woofers and two 25 mm dome tweeters
Power output: 240 W total
Water resistance: IPX4 (splashproof)
Size: 26.3 inches by 15.2 inches by 13.2 inches
Weight: 36.3 pounds
First Impressions of the JBL PartyBox Stage 320
This is the first PartyBox I've reviewed, even though they've been around for some time. I must admit that I wasn't particularly excited about this speaker. The flashy pulse-beating lights looked gimmicky to me, and the speaker just seemed unnecessarily expensive. But as I learned more about the speaker, took it out to the soccer field, and messed with the app and features, I became obsessed with it.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza photo.
I was able to comfortably roll the speaker through asphalt with its telescope handles and up a grassy hill to get 20 soccer players outdoors to enjoy some FIFA music. Like all JBL speakers, it comes with the JBL signature EQ, which sounds great out of the box. But you can customize the low, mid, and highs with five levers in the app.
Features of the JBL PartyBox Stage 320
Where the PartyBox Stage 320 shines for me is in its features, which you can control on the top of the speaker via an interactive control panel. The triangle-looking button to the right is the Auracast button, which allows you to pair two JBL TWS compatible speakers together or multiple JBL Aurocast speakers. The Bass Boost button on the right is a bass enhancer with a "deep" and a "punchy" option.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Then you have the three emoji-looking buttons in the center, and this is where the (admittedly cheesy) fun starts. They're the "party buttons" and each plays a different sound on the speaker that you can hear clearly over the music without interrupting it. You can change what each button does or says in the app, but for the most part, the first is the "voice," or a cheesy party voice that you would hear a DJ say over a mic to hype the party up. The thumbs-up is the "Vibe Tone" which has my personal favorite sound, the classic DJ "horn." And finally, the yellow disc is called "DJ sound" and is mostly different types of DJ scratches. I used many combinations of these sounds when hosting my Street FC games and had a blast messing with my players, depending on what was happening during the game.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The sliders at the top of the panel control the EQ of a microphone. You can change the bass and treble and add echo to the sound, making it fun to mimic certain lead singer sounds during karaoke. The speaker app lets you go even deeper into most of these features.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The JBL PartyBox app
The JBL PartyBox app is easy to use, although it can be slow to connect to the speaker sometimes. Here, I was able to control the lights in more detail and customize which lights I wanted to use. But where I think JBL really set itself apart from portable party speakers was with the "Effect Lab."
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The Effect Lab is essentially a mini DJ mixer. I've never DJ-ed before, so it took some time to understand what each function does and how to use it properly, but I had a lot of fun learning on-the-go with trial and error. There are no directions in the app on how to use it, but you can easily learn what everything does with the internet and after 10 minutes of playing around with it, I got a good hang of it. Combine this with some microphones for karaoke, and I have myself a deadly combination to hype up, embarrass, or impress my friends at my next house party.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Details done right
The PartyBox Stage 320 does the little things right that make a huge difference to a party speaker. The battery is replaceable, which means the speaker's longevity is not dependent on the battery's lifespan. I love that you can use the speaker with just a power cord as well, so I can leave the speaker on for very long periods of time and still have my fully charged battery if I want to be completely portable. The speaker also gets a noticeable audio boost when plugged in. The battery itself lasts up to 18 hours at 50% volume, which is loud enough for an indoor house party. When I set the volume to 70% (which I don't recommend doing indoors), with the lights on and the Bass Boost on, the battery lasted about seven hours.
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
Another impressive detail is that JBL made it very difficult to create that ultra-whiny feedback sound when you have a microphone plugged into the speaker. I have to essentially rub the microphone on the speaker to hear some sort of feedback. JBL seems to be using technology to suppress the feedback sound, giving you instead a more space-ship-zooming-by sound rather than the high-pitch feedback sound we all hate. (When I turned the echo, treble, and boost sliders up on the mic settings, I was more likely to get feedback, though.)
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The back panel also has an LED light that is useful when trying to plug things in at at night. As mentioned, you can connect up to two microphones to the speaker or one microphone and an electric guitar. There's also an AUX in if I want to practice my karaoke singing or DJ scratching without disturbing my dog. I don't have other speakers I can daisy-chain together, but the option is there if I want to connect the speaker with another one.
Closing thoughts
Credit: Daniel Oropeza
The JBL PartyBox Stage 320 exceeded my expectations as a party speaker. Although the speaker is on the heavy side at about 36 pounds, the handle and thick wheels make it easy to move around in different terrains. It is disappointing it isn't waterproof, with only an IPX4 rating, and that the speaker doesn't include a microphone.
Even though it has a powerful bass, the sound is well-balanced and doesn't overtake the vocals or treble. The interactive DJ features on the speaker and in the app take the speaker to another level of fun for parties and karaoke sessions. I loved having the option to have up to two microphones or an electric guitar plugged in, giving me a lot of possibilities on how to set up. Being able to change the battery and use the speaker with just the power cord also gives the speaker a great deal of longevity and dependence for long sessions.
I would recommend the JBL PartyBox Stage 320 to those who love hosting house parties or karaoke sessions. While the speaker is pricey at $599.95, I think it's worth the cost for someone looking for a great party speaker filled with fun features.
If you’re serious about lifting barbells, sooner or later you’re probably going to want a belt. Belts don’t prevent injury as people sometimes assume, but they do help you to lift more weight. This helps you to squat and deadlift heavier—thus get stronger—so they’re standard equipment for a lot of strong people.
We have a guide here to understanding what belts are for, how they work, and who needs them. But once you get the basic idea, you’ll probably still have questions. So let’s dig in.
When should you buy a weightlifting belt?
Every coach has their own opinion on when is the right time for a new trainee to buy a belt. Some might want to see you lift a certain weight first, or demonstrate a certain amount of skill at the big lifts. But the truth is, there’s no agreed-upon dividing line between people who need a belt and people who don’t. A belt is a tool that anybody can use, at any point in their lifting career. It doesn’t make up for not knowing how to brace, so it makes sense to learn how to brace first. But a belt can help you learn how to brace, since you can feel your belly pushing against the belt when you’re doing it right.
In my opinion, if you’re wondering whether you should get a belt, it’s probably time to get a belt. A lot of the good ones need to be ordered online, and some have a lead time of several weeks, so you might not actually get the belt until a month or two after you decide you’re ready—in other words, you may want to order your belt sooner rather than later.
Which kind of weightlifting belt should you get?
If you search for “weightlifting belt” online, you’ll get tons of results, many of them marketed to gym goers who want to look cool but who don’t really understand what a belt is for. Let me cut through the marketing to say: There are only a few kinds of belts that strength sport athletes commonly wear.
A velcro belt
First, there’s the 4-inch velcro belt. I’m starting here because it’s a good all-purpose belt, cheaper than the leather ones we’re about to talk about, and it’s arguably easier to adjust and wear, too. I have one from 2Pood, which is a popular brand among Olympic weightlifters and Crossfitters. These belts are 4 inches wide, they close with a velcro strap, and they have a locking mechanism around the strap so that it won’t pop open even if the velcro fails mid-lift. The velcro will wear out over time, although mine has put up with more than three years of frequent use and it’s still going strong.
Velcro belts will generally run you between $30 and $70, depending on the brand and any special features, like custom colors.
Next are leather belts that buckle like, well, a traditional belt. These look like a comically large version of a regular belt: either 3 or 4 inches wide, and made of a thick leather that is usually either 10 or 13 millimeters. The buckle is enormous to match. (When I got my first belt in the mail, I laughed. I couldn’t imagine wearing it out in public. But now I just see it as a normal piece of gym equipment.)
There are double-prong belts, which look cool, but they can be really annoying to operate. Remember, you’ll be taking it off and putting it on (or loosening and tightening it) between sets. The second prong doesn’t make the belt any more secure, but it does make it fussier to fasten.
In addition to my velcro belt, I have a single-prong leather belt as well, and mine is a Pioneer cut with offset holes. This way, instead of choosing between two holes that are an inch apart, I can adjust the belt in 1/2-inch increments.
Instead of a buckle, you may prefer a lever belt. Instead of placing a buckle prong through the hole of your choice when you put it on, you use a screwdriver to install the lever into the appropriate hole in the belt. Then you simply close the lever to lock it closed, and pop it open when you’re ready to take the belt off. The “pop” can be satisfying after a big lift—see this clip of Jessica Buettner for an example. (I do not have a lever belt. I am slightly jealous of people who do.)
These belts are available in the same common sizes as the good single-prong belts: 3 or 4 inches wide, 10 mm or 13 mm thick. Pioneer, the same company that makes my adjustable prong belt, also sells an adjustable lever that gives you a little bit of room to fasten the belt tighter or looser without having to take the lever off with a screwdriver. (Pioneer isn’t paying me to shill for them, I just happen to like their adjustable designs.) For an example of a non-adjustable, Inzer’s Forever lever is a popular and durable design.
Good quality leather belts, both prong and lever, cost more than velcro. $100 to $150 would be a typical price range, with the thicker belts usually being more expensive. (Again, custom colors and designs will run you a bit more.)
Your waist measurement will tell you the length of belt you should order; refer to the sizing chart on the belt company’s website to find the right size. If you’re between sizes, consider whether you’re likely to get bigger or smaller over time. For example, if you know you’ll be losing weight, you may want a belt that will still fit if you get a bit slimmer. On the other hand, it’s normal to gain muscle mass as you get stronger, and you may want to have the room to get bigger without having to buy a whole new belt.
When it comes to the width, 4 inches is standard. (The maximum width allowable in competition is usually 4 inches for powerlifting and 12 centimeters, or 4.7 inches, in weightlifting.) The advice I got when I was a beginner is that almost everybody likes a 4-inch belt for squatting, but that some people prefer a 3-inch belt for deadlifts. I ended up getting mine in a 3-inch size, and it fits well for both lifts. Some people prefer a 4-inch belt for both lifts, but wear it higher on their waist for deadlifts. If you’re not sure, see if you can borrow a belt to try on.
The next thing to decide, if you’re buying a leather belt, is whether to get your belt in a thickness of 10 millimeters or 13 millimeters. If in doubt, get the 10 mm. Thirteen is very thick, and many people find it makes the belt uncomfortably stiff, especially at the edges. If you are an enormous person and already very strong, you might need the 13 mm. But in that case, you will probably come to that conclusion through experience over time. If you’re reading this, that’s probably not you, and you want the 10 millimeter.
So are there belts you shouldn’t buy? Arguably, yes:
Double prong belts are fussier to open and close, and they aren't any stronger than single prong. If you want a buckle, most people will be happier with the single prong kind.
Velcro belts without a lock can pop open mid-lift. Look for one that has a locking mechanism that holds the strap in place, like those from 2Pood or Gymreapers.
Tapered belts, with a wide back and a narrow front, used to be popular among Olympic weightlifters. They aren’t used as much anymore, though; velcro belts have largely replaced them. Most tapered belts you’ll see online are lower quality ones aimed at people just trying to look cool in the gym. Fine as a fashion choice, but they wouldn’t be my first pick. That said, if you already have one, might as well use it. It will be fine.
Really cheap weightlifting belts (like the $20 ones you might find on Amazon) won’t last as long and might not perform as well, but they honestly aren’t terrible. If you aren’t sure whether you need a belt at all, I wouldn’t blame you for buying the cheap thing first and upgrading later.
With that information, you should be well equipped to buy a belt that meets your needs. A locking velcro belt or a 10 millimeter straight leather belt, depending on your preference, will be best for most people. Now, whether you want a plain black belt or a custom colored sequin design, that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.
Sonos's smart speakers aren't as ubiquitous as Apple, Google, or Amazon's voice-activated devices, but they've got it where it counts in terms of audio quality. And like Apple products, Sonos devices rarely go on sale, but right now, Amazon and Best Buy are offering discounts of up to 25% off two of the company's best bets, both of which are at record-low prices, according to price-checking tools.
The Sonos Move 2 is a portable speaker and a smart speaker in one—a rare combo—and it's currently $336 (down from $449). As the name implies, it was made to be used on the go; it has a 24-hour battery life, is drop resistant, and has an IP56 rating, meaning it can handle heavy rain and splashes without missing a beat, but it will not survive if you fully submerge it.
As noted in PCMag's "excellent" review of the device, the second iteration of the Sonos Move does away with Google Assistant, but it still can be used with Alexa, as well as Sonos' own voice assistant. The Sonos app provides access to media from major streaming music services like Spotify, as well as podcast apps, and the Libby app (for audiobooks). If you have other Sonos speakers, they can be networked together to play the same media.
The Sonos Era 300 is more powerful but lacks portability
If you don't care about the portable aspects and plan to keep the speaker in the same place most of the time, you can opt for go the Sonos Era 300 for $359 (originally $449). It has better bass, plays Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music and Amazon Music, and retains most of the other features as the Sonos Move 2. (Learn more about the Sonos Era 300 from PCMag's "excellent" review.)
Whether you go with the portable Sonos Move 2 or the more powerful Sonos Era 300, you'll be getting a quality smart speaker at its best price since release.
Apple released a new iPad Pro and iPad Air, among other products and announcements, during its May 7 "Let Loose" event. As is normally the case when newer versions are released, the older ones go down in price. Right now, the 5th generation 256GB iPad Air is $549.99 (originally $749). This iPad Air is the thinnest—and still one of the best—tablets Apple has to offer right now.
This wifi-enabled iPad Air, which PCMag said is "outstanding," was released in 2022. It comes with an M1 system-on-a-chip (SoC), a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP front and back camera, as well as Touch ID through the tablet’s power button. It's just a tenth of an inch thinner than the iPad Mini (and matching the 6th generation in thickness) but about twice as heavy as the Mini. Unlike previous iPad Airs, this one offers many of the same features as the 2021 iPad Pro, like the M1 processor and second-gen Apple Pencil support. The iPad Air does fall short compared to the Pro lineup when it comes to the camera, audio, and graphics, but considering it is almost half the price, it may be worth the tradeoff.
There’s an art and a science to picking a good starting word when you play Wordle. One computer analysis suggested that CRANE is the best starter; another landed on SALET. Recently the New York Times did its own analysis of the words people actually choose as their starters, and the situation is dire: ADIEU is the most popular starter, yet (allegedly) the least efficient.
That's not to say it's the worst word you could play first, but it is the worst out of the 30 most popular starters—ADIEU, STARE, SLATE, AUDIO, and RAISE. But if you rank the top 30 starters based on how effective they are at revealing letters in any given puzzle, the top five are SLATE, CRANE, LEAST, STARE, and RAISE, with ADIEU landing at number 30. (My personal favorite, ARISE, ranks seventh.)
Should a Wordle starter have a lot of vowels?
I’m going to teach the controversy here. The argument in favor of ADIEU is that it contains four vowels, and you know the solution will have to contain at least one vowels. Thus, knocking out four of them in your first guess is pretty smart. (O and sometimes-vowel Y are the only ones not included.)
But there’s an argument to be made that vowels don’t give you much information, in the data-science sense of narrowing down possibilities. Most words in English remain perfectly legible with all the vowels eliminated, and because every word contains them, you'll still have a lot of options on the table. Here's what I mean: If you play ADIEU and A lights up in yellow, yes, you know that there's an A in the solution somewhere. But that tells you very little about what the solution actually is!
Another strategy is to go with a consonant-heavy word at first, and worry about the vowels later. According to one local Wordle expert('s wife), “there are only five [vowels], and it’s almost never going to be a U.”
Your starter should mesh with your solving style
Scientific analysis aside, I don't think there's much point to picking the theoretically best starter word; you need to find your best starter word. The human brain does not narrow down the problem space in the same way as a computer. I like when I find vowels early, because having the vowels helps me sound out the words in my head. If I know there are vowels in the second and fourth places (say, _A_E_) I know it is probably a two-syllable word. I run through the available letters, trying them out in each position in my head. For me, a vowel-heavy starter is helpful. For you, it might not be.
When choosing a starter, consider the way you think through the possibilities when you're halfway through the puzzle. What starters will set you up for success with your preferred solving style? If your brain works best when you know the initial letters of the word, maybe choose a starter like TRASH, which gets a lot of common beginning consonants into the mix right away.
My own approach splits the difference: I think about my starters as a pair. With ARISE and TOUCH, I get intel on all five vowels and five of the most common consonants. If you play ADIEU, I think you need to be prepared to follow it up with THORN.
Don’t forget about Y, the sometimes vowel
Should you include Y in your starter? Most of us don't, but there's a good argument to be made for getting it in the mix fairly early in the game.
Y flies under the radar since it’s an end-of-the-alphabet letter. The tendency is to think it must be as rare as X and Z. But Y is fairly common (worth 4 points in Scrabble to X's 8 and Z's 10), showing up in words like FUNNY and JAZZY (JAZZY being the hardest word that appeared as a Wordle answer this year). Words that end in Y also often have a double letter—like the N and Z in those examples—so make sure to consider that as you’re narrowing down the possibilities.
You may recall from grade school that the vowels are “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.” (You may even have learned “...and sometimes Y and W.”) That’s because Y really can stand on its own as a vowel. The ending Y in FUNNY is an example: U is the vowel for the first syllable, and Y is the vowel for the second. There are also words that contain a Y as their only vowel, like GLYPH, NYMPH, and TRYST.
So if you’re working through a Wordle and you don’t seem to have enough vowels to make a word, stick a Y in a guess somewhere—preferably at the end. LANKY or HORNY might be good picks for when you’re stumped.
The simple Pop-Tart has come a long way since its inception in the 1960s. Although they don’t look different, the way they’re eaten has undergone some whimsical experimentation. This tracks for the colorful, jam-filled, toaster-friendly treat with teeny tiny sprinkles on top. If it’s been a while since you’ve dipped your toes into the jam-filled breakfast pastry pool, this is your sign to take the plunge. Here are some of the best ways to eat Pop-Tarts.
Eat ‘em frozen
Out of respect for the warmer temperatures approaching, the first few Pop-Tart suggestions will be a treat to cool you down. I’d never recommend a hot toaster oven when it’s 80°F; I just wouldn’t stand for it. Instead, gift yourself a frozen Pop-Tart. Take the foil sleeves out of the cardboard box (the cardboard gets humid and takes up extra space) and keep them stashed in the freezer until you need it most. The pastry gains a crisp texture and the jam never gets icy—instead it ends up pleasantly chewy.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Crumble them into ice cream
Plain flavor ice cream is fine, but I’m much more likely to get a pint of ice cream loaded with stuff. I like caramel swirls, chocolate bits, cheesecake blobs, you name it. So when I tested out a no-churn ice cream, you better believe I crumbled Pop-Tarts into it. It’s easiest to fold it into the soft-serve-like stage when you’re making your own ice cream at home, but you can do it with store-bought too. Leave the ice cream in the fridge for 30 to 45 minutes to soften. Scoop it into a bowl and mix in the pastry chunks. You can return it to the pint to freeze it hard, or just start chowing down.
Stack up an ice cream sandwich
Ice cream sandwiches are inherently fun, and when the “bread” is Pop-Tarts, the lucky eater is bound to crack a smile. I enjoy Pop-Tarts ice cream sandwiches because you can really take liberties with flavor combinations. At any given time, Pop-Tarts will have classic flavors (like strawberry, blueberry, and brown sugar cinnamon) but I constantly see the shelves stocked with weirdo-beardo flavors too, like Apple Jacks, Boston Creme Donut, or Frosted Strawberry Milkshake. Pair those with any of the numerous ice creams in the freezer section and you’ve got a delightful treat. Here’s how to make a Pop-Tart ice cream sandwich.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Use Pop-Tarts for pie crust
Usually graham cracker crumb crusts are the standard for chilled pies and tarts, but why not switch up the crumb for something a bit more nostalgic (not to mention colorful). The best part is, it’s a one-ingredient crust. Throw a few Pop-Tarts in a food processor and blend it down into small crumbs. Press the pieces into a pie dish and the jam particles will help bind the crust together. Read this for the full method.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Make the world’s laziest trifle
Cookies and milk are inextricably linked, which is why I think Pop-Tarts and heavy cream are easy friends. Make a perverted trifle of multiple flavors of Pop-Tarts layered with whipped cream for a quick crowd-pleaser when you have no energy or will to go buy the custard and cake for a “proper” trifle.
Crumble topping for muffins and cakes
The main thing that makes a crumb cake so irresistibly good is the streusel topping. And yet, my least favorite thing about making a crumb cake is taking the extra time to whip up that very same topping. Here’s an easy work around: Top your cakes with crushed Pop-Tarts. I use crushed ginger snaps in this recipe but the same method applies for your breakfast pastries.
I don’t have to convince you that a milkshake is a good idea, but you should know that any milk shake you make can be a lot more fun if it’s loaded with Pop-Tarts. That’s correct, you can drink your Pop-Tarts, and you should. It’s easy with a blender too. Simply add your favorite brand of vanilla ice cream, a sleeve of tarts, and a bit of milk. Buzz away, and grab a straw.
Replace toast with tarts
When you eat Pop-Tarts straight out of the foil package, or even gently toasted, you’re shorting yourself. Sure, they have flavor already, but that sweet filling is more like a nudge. Pop-Tarts are actually great toast replacements. Slather on a layer of jam, Nutella, or fluff. Why not add a schmear and some fresh strawberry slices? Spread on a thick coat of peanut butter and top it with sliced bananas for a snack that’s fit to rival any slice of 12-grain. The flavor combinations are endless, and if you haven’t already, now’s a good time to add a box of Cherry Frosted to your grocery list.
Even if you're decanting all your products and putting them in tidier dispensers, your bathroom won't be organized until you fix up your shelving and other storage spaces. If there's one organizational lesson I can teach you, it's that everything you own needs its own designated place—and if there's another thing I can teach you, it's that one big shelf for everything doesn't quite cut it. Here's how to get that bathroom storage into shape.
Consider more shelves
My bathroom came with three shelves built into the wall, which was nice and all, but I immediately knew I needed more. One became the home of my perfume, another was marked for skincare, and the third stores hair products—but that didn't leave any room for makeup, hair accessories, hair tools, spare towels, lotions, and random items like cotton balls or q-tips. Before unpacking anything when I moved in, I went out and got more shelves.
First, I got a bookshelf, which might seem weird, but only because it was. (I didn't buy it, but I found it discarded in the street and took it home to wash it off. I may not have bought one, but you should if you have room.) Mine looks like this basic one and sits right next to my sink. Look around your space and consider if there is room for any kind of shelving unit. Even a slim storage unit like this is great because it creates a designated shelf for four different categories of items.
How you choose to organize the shelving in the bathroom depends on what you have to organize, of course. Personally, I invested most of my time into getting the right tools to organize my makeup, but I also got dividers to space out my shelving for other uses. A major help has been an under-shelf basket like this one, where I keep headbands and other hair accessories that aren't easily stored in other ways:
These turn any shelf into a double shelf without encroaching too much on the shelf below. I also got a locker shelf to set on top of my shelving unit, extending how much can be stored on the top, too. It's designed to help organize the lockers students use in school, but it has been really helpful for keeping my q-tips, cotton balls, tooth whitening strips, and wet wipes separated. (Yes, I decant all of those and put them in more organized little containers, which then go on or above the locker organizer.)
One of the main things that prevents robot vacuums from being entirely autonomous is the need for us humans to empty the occasional vacuum bag or water tank. Switchbot's newest robot vacuum, the S10 aims to automate those tasks—and it works quite well.
The Switchbot S10 ($1,199, but you can get an additional $100 off with promo code LIFEHACKR100 at checkout until June 12), the new robot vacuum from one of my favorite smart companies, allows you to tie the water inlet and outlet for the mop directly into your water line, enabling the robot to fill and empty itself. If you commit to the work of making the water line connections (it is optional, but recommended), this bot can go for months without human intervention.
While I have some nitpicks about a few things, I was still impressed by the S10 and what it means for the future of robots in the home.
Installation requires some basic plumbing
Before you even buy the S10, you can use Switchbot's compatibility check to ensure you have somewhere to make the water connection properly. Luckily, you can tie the S10 into almost anywhere water comes into your home, whether it's the toilet, the washing machine, or a faucet, and the S10 ships with every kind of connection you could possibly need.
To get an idea of how the S10 works, it's helpful to think of it as having four parts: the robot itself; a vacuum dock where the robot charges, empties the vacuum, and dries off; a dock to hook up to wherever it gets and dumps water (more on that in a second); and water tanks, which you'll need if you forgo hooking the S10 up to a water line. Unlike other floorbots, these docks aren’t all one large piece of hardware—they're separate, and while each is smaller than most robot vacuum docks, I would have preferred only having to dedicate floor space to one thing.
Back to the water tank situation: Ideally, the S10's water station is hooked up to the water line, but you can use the optional water tanks instead, if that's not an option. If you do decide to skip the water line installation, it's important to know that these tanks are smaller than most you see in modern robots. Therefore, using the tanks will require you to empty and fill the tanks quite frequently, thus eliminating a lot of the automated convenience that makes the S10 so nice.
Switchbot has done everything possible to make installation of the water line something the average person can do, but it’s still basic plumbing, and you might run into the same problem I did: too many items demanding the water line. To tie the S10 into my bathroom plumbing, I had to either choose between my bidet and the Switchbot or have a plumber add a connection. (As smart tech continues to proliferate, I suspect the problem of tech demanding access to our waterline will become increasingly common.)
Easy setup and quick mapping
Setup for the S10 was simple. First, the Switchbot app prompts you to map its two stations (water and vacuum debris). Next, you send the S10 out to map your floor, and like most other bots that use LiDAR (a laser method measuring light and distance), this was an accurate process that happened quickly.
Once mapped, you can begin to play with the various settings to customize it to your liking. The feature I use most on robot vacuums is the intensity setting, which allows you to control how much suction the vacuum uses, or how much water and vibration the mop uses. The S10 has limited customization here, so you can’t mop only, for instance. The mapping also felt limited: I couldn't add furniture to my rooms, which is helpful in setting up zones. These aren't huge misses, though, and could be dealt with in a future software update. Most of the features I love, including remote control, the ability to see the maintenance status of parts, and the ability to tie into most voice assistants were all there—and since the S10 has support for Matter, there's a lifeline for Apple HomeKit users.
The S10's mop is great, but its size can cause problems
One of my favorite robot vacuums ever was the Switchbot K10+, which was a spectacular vacuum both in terms of how well it sucked up debris, and also in its tiny size. Because it was so diminutive, the K10+ got into spaces no other bot could, making tight turns around chair legs, etc. Unfortunately, the mop on the K10+ sucked.
The S10 has the opposite problem: it’s huge. At 14 inches wide, the S10 can’t make those tight turns or get into corners the same way as the K10+, and without extending arms that some competitors have, it left corners throughout my house with debris in them. Still, the S10 was able to get most small- to medium-sized debris, although it flunked my dog toy floof test. (When trying a new robot vacuum, I like to leave a piece of floof from a dog toy to see if the bot will suck it up or read it as an obstacle and avoid it. The S10 surfed very near the floof, but avoided it.)
On the S10, the mop is really the headliner here. This model is part of a new class of robot vacuums that don’t just deploy new water on the floor—like the Eufy S1, the S10 cleans the mop while it’s out and about, ensuring there's only clean water on the floor and the dirty water is suctioned away. But unlike the S1, which didn’t mop very impressively in my home, the S10 cleaned up wet debris and dug into dried debris on the floor. I was impressed at how much less dingy my white tiles looked after a pass, and two passes got rid of most dried stains, too.
However, this all led to a minor issue with the S10—everything we're asking this robot to do drains the battery, and so the bot would frequently have to put itself in time out at the dock to recharge. This meant that big jobs rarely got done all at once. This would be a bigger problem if the robot needed intervention from me to clear debris or refill the water, but generally speaking, the robot and I have led separate lives, which is quite the point.
Bottom line: good value, and a lot of promise
The S10 is the device I anticipated most this year and in many ways, it lived up to the hype. I had no issues at all with the refill and empty station, and I look forward to the additional devices that Switchbot will offer in the future to work with the S10 (the app already has humidifier settings available in it, but the hardware is not available yet).
As mops go, I was impressed, and while the vacuum wasn’t as good as some of my favorite Roborock models, it was still pretty good. You need to have some patience with the S10, both in dealing with the multiple docks, and how it will need to recharge often. But as a tradeoff, you’ll almost never need to intervene in the robot's life.
Google is finally explaining what the heck happened with its AI Overviews.
For those who aren’t caught up, AI Overviews were introduced to Google’s search engine on May 14, taking the beta Search Generative Experience and making it live for everyone in the U.S. The feature was supposed to give an AI-powered answer at the top of almost every search, but it wasn’t long before it started suggesting that people put glue in their pizzas or follow potentially fatal health advice. While they’re technically still active, AI Overviews seem to have become less prominent on the site, with fewer and fewer searches from the Lifehacker team returning an answer from Google’s robots.
In a blog post yesterday, Google Search VP Liz Reid clarified that while the feature underwent testing, "there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches.” The company acknowledged that AI Overviews hasn’t had the most stellar reputation (the blog is titled “About last week”), but it also said it discovered where the breakdowns happened and is working to fix them.
“AI Overviews work very differently than chatbots and other LLM products,” Reid said. “They’re not simply generating an output based on training data,” but instead running “traditional ‘search’ tasks” and providing information from “top web results.” Therefore, she doesn’t connect errors to hallucinations so much as the model misreading what’s already on the web.
“We saw AI Overviews that featured sarcastic or troll-y content from discussion forums," she continued. "Forums are often a great source of authentic, first-hand information, but in some cases can lead to less-than-helpful advice.” In other words, because the robot can’t distinguish between sarcasm and actual help, it can sometimes present the former for the latter.
Similarly, when there are “data voids” on certain topics, meaning not a lot has been written seriously about them, Reid said Overviews was accidentally pulling from satirical sources instead of legitimate ones. To combat these errors, the company has now supposedly made improvements to AI Overviews, saying:
We built better detection mechanisms for nonsensical queries that shouldn’t show an AI Overview, and limited the inclusion of satire and humor content.
We updated our systems to limit the use of user-generated content in responses that could offer misleading advice.
We added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful.
For topics like news and health, we already have strong guardrails in place. For example, we aim to not show AI Overviews for hard news topics, where freshness and factuality are important. In the case of health, we launched additional triggering refinements to enhance our quality protections.
All these changes mean AI Overviews probably aren’t going anywhere soon, even as people keep finding new ways to remove Google AI from search. Despite social media buzz, the company said “user feedback shows that with AI Overviews, people have higher satisfaction with their search results,” going on to talk about how dedicated Google is to “strengthening [its] protections, including for edge cases."
That said, it looks like there’s still some disconnect between Google and users. Elsewhere in its posts, Google called out users for “nonsensical new searches, seemingly aimed at producing erroneous results.”
Specifically, the company questioned why someone would search for “How many rocks should I eat?” The idea was to break down where data voids might pop up, and while Google said these questions “highlighted some specific areas that we needed to improve,” the implication seems to be that problems mostly appear when people go looking for them.
Similarly, Google denied responsibility for several AI Overview answers, saying that “dangerous results for topics like leaving dogs in cars, smoking while pregnant, and depression” were faked.
There’s certainly a tone of defensiveness to the post, even as Google spends billions on AI engineers who are presumably paid to find these kinds of mistakes before they go live. Google says AI Overviews only “misinterpret language” in “a small number of cases,” but we do feel bad for anyone sincerely trying to up their workout routine who might have followed its "squat plug" advice.
The most anticipated title to hit Prime Video in June is season four of The Boys (June 13), the satirical superhero show adapted from the same-named comic book series and starring Billy Butcher as Karl Urban, leader of the titular group of super powered individuals. In the new season, Urban has only months left to live and must work to bring his team back together to save the world. Three episodes premiere on June 13, with additional episodes dropping weekly through mid-July.
Prime Video is also streaming two original sports documentaries in June. First up is Power of the Dream (June 18), a feature-length film that chronicles how WNBA team the Atlanta Dream's support of Black Lives Matter helped flip a Georgia Senate seat and led to the election of Rev. Raphael Warnock. Federer: Twelve Final Days (June 20) offers a behind-the-scenes look—using home video footage—of the last days of tennis star Roger Federer's career.
Finally, there's My Lady Jane (June 27), an eight-episode original series that tells an alternate history of Lady Jane Grey—played by Emily Bader—in which the British noblewoman avoids execution and instead lives a life of romance and adventure.
Here’s everything else coming to Prime Video and Amazon-owned, ad-supported Freevee in June, including the blockbuster, Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (June 18), from director Christopher Nolan.
What’s coming to Prime Video in June 2024
Arriving June 1
Animal Crackers (2020)
Annie (2014)
A Raisin In The Sun (1961)
At Close Range (1986)
Basic (2003)
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Bite The Bullet (1975)
Black Dynamite (2010)
Bloodsport (1988)
Blow Out (1981)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Brewster's Millions (1985)
Brick (2006)
Bruno (2009)
Buck And The Preacher (1972)
Class (1983)
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
Cry Freedom (1987)
Dark Angel (1990)
Dark Blue (2003)
Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
Death At A Funeral (2007)
Diablo (2016)
Duck Soup (1933)
Edge Of Darkness (2010)
Eye Of The Needle (1981)
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Finding Forrester (2001)
Fireproof (2008)
Gigli (2003)
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2004)
Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah (1999)
Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla II (1999)
Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus: The G Annihilation Strategy (2003)
Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla (1999)
Godzilla, Mothra, And King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2003)
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2004)
Gridiron Gang (2006)
Guarding Tess (1994)
Hackers (1995)
Hellfighters (1968)
High Noon (1952)
I Am Ali (2014)
I Am Bolt (2016)
Down (2002)
Incendies (2010)
It Came From Outer Space (1953)
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Juan Of The Dead (2011)
Just Mercy (2020)
Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Kindergarten Cop 2 (2016)
Las Vegas S1-S5
Last Tango In Paris (1973)
Layer Cake (2005)
Little Man (2006)
Macarthur (1977)
Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)
Midnight Run (1988)
Milk (2009)
Money Train (1995)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
No Good Deed (2014)
No Stranger Than Love (2016)
Noah (2014)
Not Without My Daughter (1991)
Ong Bak - The Thai Warrior (2005)
Open Season (2006)
Outlaws And Angels (2016)
Overboard (1987)
Pariah (2011)
Paths Of Glory (1957)
Platoon (1987)
Precious (2009)
Predestination (2015)
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Quantum Of Solace (2008)
Revenge (1990)
Saved! (2004)
Six Degrees Of Separation (1993)
Skyfall (2012)
Sleepover (2004)
Soapdish (1958)
Some Kind Of Wonderful (1987)
St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
Stomp The Yard (2007)
Superbad Unrated (2007)
Takers (2010)
Tangerine (2015)
Teen Wolf (1985)
The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert (1994)
The African Queen (1952)
The Animal (2001)
The Battle Of Britain (1969)
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1977)
The Brady Bunch Movie (1995)
The Danish Girl (2016)
The Haunting (1999)
The Hurricane (2000)
The Kids Are All Right (2010)
The Last Castle (2001)
The Man in the Moon (1991)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
The Mechanic (2011)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
The Quiet Man (1952)
The Russia House (1990)
The War Wagon (1967)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)
Space is a big motivator when it comes to buying a house; sometimes it seems as if people start planning to buy a bigger house the moment they move into their current one. And yet, after years of growth, new houses have actually been getting smaller over the last few years, dropping from a median of 2,519 square feet in 2015 to just 2,191 last year.
The rule of thumb on square footage is that you need about 600 to 700 square feet per person living in a house, so if you’re a family of four you ideally want about 2,400-2,800 square feet. And adding square footage can pay off—every 1,000 square feet of additional space in your home can potentially boost your home’s value by 30%. There are several options for adding square footage to your home, but most depend on having space to expand into. If you lack outdoor space, can’t build up due to zoning laws or other barriers, and you have a shallow crawl space that’s not usable for any activity except crawling, you might ask yourself if you can solve your square footage problem by going down.
Can you? Possibly. Should you? That’s a more complicated question.
Digging out
Digging out a crawl space or shallow basement is just what it sounds like: You dig, removing the dirt and other debris currently forming the floor, lowering the floor until you have usable clearance above your head. It’s more complicated than that, of course: You also have to extend and reinforce the foundation and footings via underpinning or buttressing, and you have to figure out how to remove all that dirt.
There are many considerations involved when deciding whether it’s possible to dig out your crawl space:
Soil. The type and condition of the soil your house is built on is a big factor. Loose, sandy soil is more likely to collapse during the process.
Foundation. The type of foundation matters, too; older foundations made from bricks are less stable, especially if the mortar is sandy. Monolithic concrete foundations are better for dig outs.
If you consult with a structural engineer and decide it’s possible to dig out your crawl space and get that valuable square footage added to your house, you still have to decide if it’s worth it. And it very well may not be.
Considerations
There are a lot of potentially disastrous downsides to digging out your crawl space to create a basement you can then finish:
Cost: The total cost to dig out a crawl space and create a finished basement can be as much as $200,000. Even if you get that 30% bump in your home’s sale price, it’s going to be tough to get a solid ROI on that.
Risk: Homes can—and do—collapse when crawl spaces are dug out. Even when proceeding with extreme caution, digging out can weaken the foundation and cause it to shift, which can set off a chain reaction of failure that leaves you not only with no new basement, but also no house.
Cost, again: Because of that extra risk, you’d be well advised to buy extra insurance if you undertake the project—especially because catastrophic failure of your home’s stability can impact your neighbors on every side. You’d better be prepared for that kind of liability.
Time: This isn’t a quick job. It can take weeks to dig out a crawl space, and you may not be able to stay in the home during the process.
Bottom line
You’ve got a crawl space you try your best to never enter. You’re dreaming of a finished basement or accessory dwelling unit. Should you dig out your crawl space? Only if you answer "yes" to the following questions:
Do you have no other option to add square footage to your home?
Was your home built after 1950 or so?
Has a licensed structural engineer signed off?
Are you prepared for the cost and potential liability?
If your answer is "no" to any of these questions, put down that shovel and back away from your crawlspace.
Apple loves keeping you in its walled garden of convenient but locked-down apps. That's not always a bad thing—I enjoy using my Apple Watch to unlock my Mac. However, it gets annoying when you can't use third-party apps or services for certain things, like music streaming or voice assistants. Shazam, the song recognition service owned by Apple, is a great example of this.
When you ask Siri to identify a song playing around you, the voice assistant will listen, recognize the song via Shazam, and show you a button to open it in Apple Music. That's great if you use Apple's streaming service, but not so great if you opt for a third-party option. Normally, iOS won't allow you to open these links in Spotify, YouTube Music, or any other streaming app that you might use. Fortunately, the iPhone automation community has a great solution to this particular problem: a shortcut called Quick Shazam, created by user @ZXXII over on RoutineHub.
Force Shazam to send songs to Spotify (or other services)
To stop Shazam from sending you to Apple Music all the time, you'll need to use Apple's Shortcuts app. Most iPhones will already have it, so start by downloading the Quick Shazam shortcut and running it on your iPhone. During the setup process, Quick Shazam will ask you to choose your favorite music platform from the following options:
Spotify
Deezer
Tidal
iTunes
YouTube
YouTube Music
Pandora
SoundCloud
Don't worry if you end up dropping a subscription later, as you can change your pick whenever you'd like. Before you use this shortcut, I highly recommend making it easier to access by adding it to the Home Screen. To do so, open the Shortcuts app and hold down the Quick Shazam icon. Hit Share and Add to Home Screen. Now, it'll open just like an app.
From here, just tap the shortcut's icon whenever you want to and it'll automatically open Shazam and start listening for a song. Once the song is identified, you'll see a Shazam pop-up with an Apple Music button for a second or so. Ignore this. The shortcut will automatically dismiss the pop-up and opens the song in your preferred music streaming service.
You can get this TCL Tab 10 Android tablet on sale for $99.99 right now (reg. $249) through May 31. It has a MediaTek Kompanio 800T Octa-Core 5G chipset and 4GB of RAM, so it's suitable for everyday tasks and streaming, but not for intensive software or heavy multitasking. It features a 10.1-inch 1920x1200 display, 32GB of built-in storage with microSD support up to 512GB, 8,000mAh battery capacity, a slim 0.33-inch profile, and it weighs just over a pound. Running on Android 12 OS, it features Material You design, an improved privacy dashboard, one-handed mode, and a game dashboard.
You can get this TCL Tab 10 Android tablet on sale for $99.99 right now (reg. $249) through May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.
Thus far, AI devices like the Rabbit R1 and the Humane Ai pin have been all hype, no substance. The gadgets largely failed on their promises as true AI companions, but even if they didn't suffer consistent glitches from a rushed-to-market strategy, they still have a fundamental flaw: Why do I need a separate device for AI when I can do basically everything advertised with a smartphone?
It's a tough sell, and it's made me quite skeptical of AI hardware taking off in any meaningful way. I imagine anyone interested in AI is more likely to download the ChatGPT app and ask it about the world around them rather than drop hundreds of dollars on a standalone device. If you have an iPhone, however, you may soon be forgetting about an AI app altogether.
Siri might be the AI assistant we've been promised
Although Apple has been totally late to the AI party, it might be working on something that actually succeeds where Rabbit and Humane failed: According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning on a big overhaul to Siri for a later version of iOS 18: While rumors previously suggested Apple was working on making interactions with Siri more natural, the latest leaks suggest the company is giving Siri the power to control "hundreds" of features within Apple apps: You say what you want the assistant to do (e.g. crop this photo) and it will. If true, it's a huge leap from using Siri to set alarms and check the weather.
Gurman says Apple had to essentially rewire Siri for this feature, integrating the assistant with LLMs for all its AI processing. He says Apple is planning on making Siri a major showcase at WWDC, demoing how the new AI assistant can open documents, move notes to specific folders, manage your email, and create a summary for an article you're reading. At this point, AI Siri reportedly handles one command at a time, but Apple wants to roll out an update that lets you stack commands as well. Theoretically, you could eventually ask Siri to perform multiple functions across apps. Apple also plans to start with its own apps, so Siri wouldn't be able to interact this way within Instagram or YouTube—at least not yet.
It also won't be ready for some time: Although iOS 18 is likely to drop in the fall, Gurman thinks AI Siri won't be here until at least next year. Other than that, though, we don't know much else about this change at this time. But the idea that you can ask Siri to do anything on your smartphone is intriguing: In Messages, you could say "Hey Siri, react with a heart on David's last message." In Notes, you could say "Hey Siri, invite Sarah and Michael to collaborate on this note." If Apple has found a way to make virtually every feature in iOS Siri-friendly, that could be a game changer.
In fact, it could turn Siri (and, to a greater extent, your iPhone) into the AI assistant companies are struggling to sell the public on. Imagine a future when you can point your iPhone at a subject and ask Siri to tell you more about it. Then, maybe you ask Siri to take a photo of the subject, crop it, and email it to a friend, complete with the summary you just learned about. Maybe you're scrolling through a complex article, and you ask Siri to summarize it for you. In this ideal version of AI Siri, you don't need a Rabbit R1 or a Humane Ai Pin: You just need Apple's latest and greatest iPhone. Not only will Siri do everything these AI devices say they can, it'll also do everything else you normally do on your iPhone. Win-win.
The iPhone is the other side of the coin, though: These features are power intensive, so Apple is rumored to be figuring out which features can be run on-device, and which need to be run in the cloud. The more features Apple outsources to the cloud, the greater the security risk, although some rumors say the company is working on making even cloud-based AI features secure as well. But Apple will likely keep AI-powered Siri features running on-device, which means you might need at least an iPhone 15 Pro to run it.
The truth is, we won't know exactly what AI features Apple is cooking up until they hit the stage in June. If Gurman's sources are to be believed, however, Apple's delayed AI strategy might just work out in its favor.
Everyone needs a little pick-me-up to get through a long day now and then. If your go-to self-care "treats" aren't quite cutting it anymore—maybe your regular Thursday afternoon donut is no longer hitting like it used to—consider adding porn dosing into your routine.
Similar to micro-dosing, or the practice of taking a small amount of a psychedelic drug like cannabis or psilocybin to boost your mood and creativity, porn dosing involves watching to or listening to porn or reading erotica in short bursts throughout the week for a small pleasure boost.
According to Jaimee Bell, sex expert and producer at erotic audio platform Bloom Stories, the trend is being fueled by TikTok's "spicy audio" movement, where users of that platform are listening to short, erotic audio clips while grocery shopping, working out, commuting, and even at work.
"Listening to spicy content can be an amazing way to boost your mood [and] relax, and can give you ideas and get you in the mood for intimacy, even during a busy week," Bell says. In a recent survey carried out by Bloom Stories, 98% of the platform's users said listening to audio erotica boosted their sense of wellbeing, and 92% of users found that it was good for their intimate relationships too.
If you're curious about how to add porn dosing to your day, here's what you need to know.
Why you should add porn dosing into your day
Porn dosing can take different forms, says Bell, depending on your preferred type of erotic content. Some people might choose to watch short clips of porn videos in those moments they might otherwise take a break by scrolling social media. Others might listen to a short erotic audio story or passages from a smutty audiobook on their way home from work, or check out OnlyFans on their lunch break (while away from their work desk, obviously) for some added spice.
Bell does stress the importance of watching and listening to ethically produced adult content, so you can feel good about what you're consuming.
The benefits of porn dosing
The goal isn't to reach orgasm every time you porn dose, Bell says, but to the build up a sense of anticipation that can lead to an amazing orgasm later, when you are eventually in the position to release that tension. "The benefits of orgasm are well documented: Our brains release oxytocin and endorphins, which can reduce stress, improve focus and help us sleep better," she says.
Similarly, award-winning erotic filmmaker Erika Lust says porn dosing can boost serotonin in the same way as listening to a song you love. "Serotonin encourages better moods, sleep, digestion and of course, sexual desire, so it may make you more productive to watch short snippets of porn throughout the week."
Lust says that porn dosing can also benefit people who don’t know what type of porn they enjoy. By experimenting with different varieties and formats, by listening, reading, or watching, you can see which gets you the most excited.
Also, Bell adds, porn dosing can "be just one part of a healthy sex life, [helping you to] feel sexually empowered, aroused, and excited to try new things with your partner(s). Research has repeatedly associated a healthy sex life with improved cognitive function and mood."
So in addition to experimenting with sex toys and role-playing, for example, you might want to include porn dosing as part of your sexual repertoire.
How to fit porn dosing into your routine
First, says Bell, it's important to find a format you like. "Do you prefer reading, watching or listening to erotic content? Audio can be a great format, as it’s subtle, and something you can easily consume on the move [via] headphones," she says. "But experiment and find what you like best."
Bell also suggests setting a habit. "For example, listening to something spicy on your homeward commute could help get you in the mood for intimacy with your partner when you get home," she says. "Or you might find a spicy erotica break at lunchtime energizes you for an afternoon at your desk."
Most of all, porn dosing should be fun. "Don’t put yourself under pressure [to the point] that it feels like a chore," Bell says. "Do what feels good and right for you."
The potential drawbacks of porn dosing
It must be said that obeying the NSFW rules of your workplace is crucial. Getting caught will be embarrassing at best, and could cost you yours job at worst. That's not the relaxing vibe of porn dosing you're looking for. You also want to be safe while consuming content, advises Lust, which means not listening or watching erotic content if you're likely to become dangerously distracted while doing so.
Turning porn dosing into a habit might sound like a gateway drug" to a porn addiction, but Lust notes that such an affliction is better thought of as, "more of a symptom of deeper psychiatric issues or relational conflicts...than [a problem] with the porn consumption itself." However, she stresses, "a healthier way to watch pornography is to choose porn that aligns with your values and that portrays credible stories, and the same is true when you enjoy porn in smaller, bite-sized doses."
As with anything pleasurable, it's important to use erotic content in moderation and notice if your watching or listening habits are having a negative impact on your wellbeing or relationships. "If this is the case, seek the support of a professional who can help you talk this through," Bell advises.
Signs that perhaps you are overindulging, says Lust, could be that you find you have trouble keeping your consumption limited to those bite-sized sessions, or in ways and at times that make you feel out of control. "My advice would be to try to be mindful of your decisions, the same as you would with the food you consume," she adds. "As long as we are mindful about the decisions we make when consuming any kind of product, [that] lessens the risk of becoming obsessed [with] or addicted to it."
You don’t have to be a complete coffee nut to make a bold, refreshing cold brew coffee concentrate at home. Of course it doesn’t hurt if you are obsessed, but the simplicity of the process and rewarding results make it worth a try for even the occasional iced coffee drinker. Here’s an easy step-by-step so you can jump into summer with an extraordinary amount of energy.
What is cold brew coffee?
Cold brew is coffee brewed without heat. Typically when you make coffee—whether it’s drip, pour over, or espresso—the coffee grinds make contact with near boiling water and this leads to a much faster extraction. You can go on to pour hot brewed coffee over ice, and this would simply be iced coffee. Instead, cold brew is a slow, hands-off extraction process of basically two steps: combine the coffee grounds with water, and wait.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Why you should make cold brew
Hands-off brewing. One of the reasons cold brew is worth making is what I just mentioned: you can just walk away. The brew happens overnight, so after you combine the coffee and water, you don’t have to think about it until tomorrow.
It lasts a while. Usually when you embark on making cold brew, it’s a concentrate. While it might look like a small amount, it’s incredibly strong. So a measly 12 ounces of concentrate might last you a solid three mornings of caffeination. If you’re a sometimes-drinker, you’re in even more luck. The general consensus among coffee roasters is that cold brew can keep for seven to 10 days, if stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
It’s smoothas heck. Don’t misunderstand, I like hot brewed coffee too. The hot water extracts flavors and oils from the bean that display the entire spectrum of flavor. That said, cold brewed coffee has a round, mellow flavor, and a pleasant viscous consistency that you just don’t get with hot coffee.
Catered to you. Packaged cold brew from the supermarket or cold brew purchased at a cafe is made the way the company likes it. At home, you can experiment with ratios and roasts to make your perfect blend.
No special tools needed. Yes, I’m literally about to list tools that I used to make my cold brew at home, but technically none of this is needed exactly. You only need a container with a lid, coarsely ground coffee, and filtered water. Then you can strain it in any of the ways that I list in Step 5.
Coffee beans and roasts span a broad range of flavors and notes akin to the influence of terroir in wine making. Whichever bean you like is the one you should use. However, I do recommend you choose a coffee that comes in whole bean format, at the very least. This time I used Café Grumpy’s Momentum roast. Freshly ground coffee will give you more flavor, so even if you pick a more affordable brand you should freshly grind the whole beans at the store or at home. Which brings us to our next step.
Left: a medium grind, Right: a coarse grind.Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
2. Use a coarse grind
The size of the grounds is mostly about logistics. After the coffee brews, you’ll have to strain it, and while smaller coffee bits lead to a stronger flavor, they’ll also leave muddy sediment in your drink. Set your grinder to a medium-coarse grind, leaning slightly more to the coarse side.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
3. Break out the scale
Cold brew concentrate ratios can range anywhere from a 1:2 ratio to 1:8 parts coarse coffee to water. I usually land somewhere in the middle with a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio because I think this amount of water makes better contact with the beans. Plus, this amount fits best in my French press.
You’ll add water to the concentrate when you serve it, so even if your ratio isn’t perfect, you’ll be able to adjust it later. Once you’ve decided on your ratio, you can do some gentle math. Don’t worry, it’s not too bad, but a kitchen scale helps.
Since I like to use my French press for cold brew and it has a four-cup liquid capacity, I aim for about five ounces of beans and 20 to 25 ounces of water. Combine the beans and filtered water in your vessel of choice and give it a good stir with a spoon or a chopstick.
If you don't have a scale, and you adamantly refuse to buy one (even though every kitchen should have one—they're small, and incredibly affordable now) you can use volume measurements. You'll probably need to adjust your dilution at the end to nail your perfect mix every time. For my 1:5 ratio I used two cups of ground beans and a hair over three cups of water.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
4. Steep
Put the lid on your cold brew vessel if there is one. For a French press, Press the plunger down until the mesh meets the water line, which will prevent any grounds from peeking out of the water. Leave the brew to steep on the counter at room temperature for 16 to 18 hours. If you think you can’t make that time frame, maybe you’ll be out of the house or you started your cold brew at a weird time of day, brew it in the fridge instead. This lengthens the brew time to about 20 to 24 hours.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
5. Strain and decant
I started my brew at 3 p.m. yesterday and strained it this morning at 8 a.m. into a mason jar lined with a nut milk bag. The French press already has a mesh strainer but inevitably little bits make their way around, so a second, finer sieve helps catch those wayward bits. I like the nut milk bag because it's reusable, but if you don't have one you can use a regular paper coffee filter, a few layers of cheese cloth, or even a sheet of paper towel in a multi-purpose sieve.
You can decant the mixture into any container or jar you’d like as long as it has a tight fitting lid for storing.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
6. Dilute and enjoy
Now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting for: drinking! You’ve probably noticed you used a heck of a lot of beans for a seemingly small amount of coffee. Concentrate is deceiving like that, but don’t be dismayed. I like to fill a glass halfway with ice, and add 50/50 concentrate and water. Depending on the strength of the concentrate you made you’ll dilute the brew a bit more or less than I did. Add a splash of milk if you like and get on your way. Now there's no need to hit the cafe first thing to get that perfect summer cold brew.
You may already know the benefits of decanting everything you buy—basically, that putting soaps, snacks, and everything else into sturdier storage boxes makes your home look nicer and keeps your stuff more organized. For the most part, this is helpful in the kitchen, but you know where else dispensers and organizers really shine? The bathroom. Here are some cool ideas for how to dispense and store your bathroom essentials. (And don't forget to check if your city has a refill store where you can bring these dispensers to fill them with products, avoiding purchasing single-use plastics altogether.)
Toothpaste dispensers
What makes toothpaste dispensers so useful is the lack of mess. Regular toothpaste tubes can get crusty, especially if you're someone who isn't great about securing the cap every time. They're also hard to squeeze toward the end, so any device that eliminates that struggle is well worth the investment.
This bad boy has a drawer to store small items, a shelf to store bigger ones, and enclosed toothbrush storage so your brushes aren't exposed to the bathroom air. Here are a few other options:
If all you want is a toothpaste dispenser with no storage, this little wall-mounted one ($8.63) will do the trick.
This wall-mounted dispenser has space for two electric toothbrushes and four regular ones ($9.99).
Shampoo dispensers
You know how it feels strangely luxurious when you're at a nice gym or hotel and the shampoo comes out of a dispenser mounted in the shower? I like to have that experience all the time instead of battling with slippery bottles.
You could also try standard pump bottles if wall-mounting isn't an option. As with the wall-mounted device above, it's better to get clear containers so you can more easily monitor when you need a restock or refill (which is another reason these are better than using the opaque bottles your products come in). Try this four-pack for $9.98.
Soap dispensers
Nothing classes up a bathroom like a nice soap dispenser. Before I started using soap dispensers that matched my decor, I'd buy colorful soap bottles that did—even if I hated the smell. With the introduction of soap dispensers to my very classy and sophisticated life, I can have whatever scent I want and keep my vanity looking fresh. Here's the set I bought for my boyfriend, which basically revolutionized his bathroom by making everything from the garbage can to the toilet brush to, yes, the soap dispenser match:
Of course, you don't need to get all of that. You can find a variety of soap dispensers, like this set of two black pump bottles ($7.99) or even this wall-mounted one that saves you some counter space ($17.89).
Other bathroom decanting options
Don't store your toilet paper in the big plastic monstrosity it came in. Instead, use this sleek storage bin, which is slim enough to fit next to the toilet ($23.99). Menstrual products take up a lot of valuable drawer and cabinet space, too, so this little wall-mounted dispenser is a discreet, useful solution ($12.98). Finally, this pack of little jars is perfect for q-tips, cotton balls, flossers, or other little self-care essentials ($6.90).
It's not a great feeling, realizing you've accidentally deleted an important photo or document on your phone. Maybe you've picked the wrong file, or you've tapped the wrong button, but it's easily done—and it's not the kind of mistake you're always going to notice right away, either.
The good news is that Android, iOS, and the apps that run on top of them now come with safety nets built in. There's a decent chance you're going to be able to get that deleted data back—it's just a question of knowing where to look, and that depends on the app you used to do the deleting.
If you can't get your files back using the methods we've described below, then you're going to have to dig deeper—perhaps into your phone backups (which you should have set up, in case your phone gets lost or stolen).
Google Photos (Android and iOS)
If you use Google Photos to manage photos and videos on your phone, open the Library tab, then tap the Trash folder. Tap on a file then Restore to undelete it; or, press and hold on one file, then select multiple items, then tap Restore. Google Photos will keep deleted photos and videos in the Trash folder for 60 days before erasing them completely.
Apple Photos (iOS)
Over on the default photos and videos app for the iPhone, deleted files can be found by going to Albums then Recently Deleted. Here, deleted files are kept around for 40 days (you can see the days remaining on each item). Tap a photo or video then choose Recover to bring it back, or use the Select button to pick multiple items to restore at once.
Samsung Gallery (Android)
If you're using the Samsung Gallery app found on its Galaxy phones to manage your photos and videos, open the app and tap the three horizontal lines (bottom right), then pick Recycle bin to view and restore files. You might also see photos and videos deleted by third-party apps here too, depending on how you've set up integrations on your phone.
Restoring files in Files by Google.Credit: Lifehacker
Files by Google (Android)
In the default file manager on Android, tap the three horizontal lines (top left), then Trash. Any files that have been sent here will be kept for 30 days before being erased completely, and they're listed in groups based on when they were originally deleted. To bring any of the deleted files back to their original locations, select them and tap on Restore.
My Files (Android)
If you're on a Samsung Galaxy phone, you might be using My Files rather than Files by Google to manage locally stored data. Open up the app and you'll see a Recycle bin link on the front screen for viewing and restoring files—as with the Gallery app, you'll possibly see files deleted by other apps in here, depending on the file type and syncing options.
Files (iOS)
If you've deleted something from your iPhone, you might find it inside the iOS Files app, up to 30 days afterwards: Open the Browse tab, then tap Recently Deleted to view and restore files. Note that the Files app can also manage your various cloud storage accounts (like iCloud), so there may be some crossover with the other options mentioned here.
Restoring files in Files on iOS.Credit: Lifehacker
Google Drive (Android and iOS)
Any file deleted from inside Google Drive or synced to it is recoverable for 30 days afterwards: From inside the mobile app, tap the three horizontal lines (top left), then Trash. You can browse through the files just like any other Google Drive folder, and if you tap the three dots to the right of any of the files listed, there's a Restore option.
iCloud Drive (iOS)
If you're using iCloud Drive in addition to the Files app on iOS, you've got an extra layer of protection when it comes to accidentally erasing your stuff. You can either get at your deleted files from the Browse tab in the Files app as described above, or through iCloud Drive on the web—just click on Recently Deleted in the side panel on the left.
Other apps (Android and iOS)
If you're using some kind of cloud-based storage alongside your phone, you should have an undelete feature to fall back on. Dropbox, for example, keeps deleted files for 30 days (or longer on paid plans), but you need to go to the desktop web interface to find them: Click Deleted files in the left-hand pane to see a list of files and bring them back if needed.
Microsoft OneDrive has a built-in safety net to make use of as well, and it's called—you guessed it—the recycle bin. From the mobile app, tap Me and then Recycle bin to see files that have recently been wiped from your OneDrive account. To restore any of them back to their original locations, tap the three dots (on the right-hand side), then Restore.
Sometimes, the most expensive option isn’t the best one, and smartwatches are no exception. For the past two weeks, I’ve swapped out my typical Apple Watch SE for the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and for the most part, I much prefer the $249 pick to the $799 one.
From an always-on display to an Action button, there’s a lot to love about the Apple Watch Ultra 2. But it’s a highly specialized device, with a lot of features included that most people won’t need. Even if cost wasn't a factor, I’d bet a good amount of folks would still prefer either an Apple Watch SE or Apple Watch Series 9.
Let’s break down the pros and cons of Apple’s most expensive and least expensive watches to help you find which one is right for you.
Why get a smart watch?
I didn’t start wearing a smartwatch until just after the pandemic, when I started commuting to work more often. I’m not much of an athlete, and I thought the whole thing was kind of silly, like wearing a “please mug me” sign. I suppose people once said the same thing about flip phones.
The Apple Watch SE is meant for someone like me. It’s small, lightweight, and does just enough to win me over. I like to think of it like an updated iPod Nano. It’s a tiny box I can use to control my media, use tap-to-pay, and occasionally track walks. That’s all I need, but it was convenient enough that I’ve grown to love the thing and how it lets me keep my phone in my bag while on the train.
Others, however, have bought into smartwatches since the beginning. They love the detailed sensors higher-end models come with, the luxury looks available with an upgrade, and feeling their hefty cases on their wrists. For these people, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a great choice.
What does each Apple Watch model come with?
Apple currently sells three Apple Watch models, and I’ve tested two. None are bad choices, but they each cater to a different audience, so there’s a lot to take into account even if money is no object.
The cheapest Apple Watch is the Apple Watch SE, which comes with the smallest size option and bare minimum specs. For $249, its aluminum body packs a 1,000 nit display, a battery that’s advertised to hold up to an 18 hour charge, the S8 chip (powering features like Siri and Find my iPhone), and an optical heart rate monitor. You’ll get water resistance up to a 164 feet depth, and for a $50 upcharge, you can add in the ability to connect a cellular plan.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is one step up and starts at $399 (cellular adds $100 to the price, and you can pay even more for a stainless steel case). For that extra money, you’ll get a 2,000 nit always-on display, the S9 chip (unlocking the double tap feature and upgrading Siri as well as Find my iPhone), a new ECG, temperature sensing, fast charging, and a low power mode for your battery that’s purported to last up to 36 hours.
Finally, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 starts at $799 and only comes in one model, with additional upcharges being reserved for accessories. All Ultra 2 models have a titanium case, a 3,000 nit always-on display, the S9 chip, 328 feet of water resistance, an upgraded GPS, cellular compatibility, and a purported battery life of up to 36 hours in normal use and 72 hours in low power mode. There’s also an orange Action button on the side and additional sensors including a gyroscope and a depth gauge.
All Apple Watch models come with OLED screens, a digital crown, speakers (although they’re upgraded on the Ultra), and a menu button, but if we were to discuss everything that’s different about them, we’d be here all day. For more details, check Apple’s site, but even with everything I’ve already laid out, I’ve yet to touch on the most important difference.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is too big and heavy for my wrist
Remember how I called the Apple Watch SE an updated iPod Nano? That wouldn’t fly with the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
The SE comes in 40mm and 44mm sizes (I have the 40), and weighs a max of 33g even on the larger model with cellular included. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 only comes in 49mm, and weighs 61.4g.
This thing is chonky, especially for a smaller wrist like mine, and feels less like wearing a control center for your iPhone—or perhaps a whole separate iPhone entirely. It’s cool for bragging rights, but less so for the type of everyday use that sold me on smartwatches in the first place.
Outside of its specialty use cases, the always-on display is about the only upgrade I actually enjoyed for most of my time using it. Everything else was just a burden.
If you’re like me, the Ultra 2 is just a bad pick, even if you can afford it and usually opt for top-of-the-line options like the M3 Max MacBook Pro. You’ll end up getting a lot you don’t use, and a worse experience with what you do, so do yourself a favor and cheap out.
When is the Apple Watch Ultra 2 worth it?
But that doesn’t mean the additions to the Ultra 2 are just back-of-the-box selling points that Apple is using to jack up the price. They’re genuinely useful for people who need it, i.e. outdoorsy folks.
The whole reason I started this comparison was to test out the updated Golfshot app, a golf course assistant for Android, iOS, and Apple Watch. Earlier this month, it got an update for Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2 that was a genuine game changer, and could totally make the upgrade worth it for me if I were a big golfer.
On top of adding driving ranges to the app’s lineup of courses, the update makes use of the Apple Watch Ultra line’s extra sensors to track your swing in detail every time. SwingID allows the app to track factors like tempo, rhythm, backswing, and the like, and while it’s available on Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra can track your swing at 800hz, allowing it to detect exactly when you hit the ball.
In just a short few hours of play, I managed to use this data to see what was causing my shots to veer off to the right so frequently, and ended the session straightening them out.
It’s cases like this where Apple Watch shines. For instance, the extra waterproofing and Depth app makes it a diving companion, while the detailed watch face options, extra large battery, loud speakers, and cellular connectivity make it useful for keeping hikers both informed and safe.
I’m not likely to use these features anytime soon, but given that competing activity watches like Garmin’s Mk3 Dive Computer can reach into the thousands of dollars, the Apple Watch Ultra could be a fair replacement for more specialized equipment.
The large size also puts Apple Watch Ultra in greater competition with luxury watches. I tend not to pick my outfit for bragging rights, but there’s no arguing that the Ultra doesn’t look slick, especially if you add on one of Apple’s official Hermès bands.
Do I need Apple Watch Ultra if I’m just going to the gym?
I like to view Apple Watch Ultra best as a specialty activity companion, and while I did try wearing it to the gym, I didn’t get much out of it. My typical day at the gym involves about a half-hour of using the elliptical and ten minutes of weight lifting, and for this, the Ultra only really gave me one benefit: the Action button.
On the side of both Apple Watch Ultras is an orange Action button that can be set to trigger anything from a stopwatch to a flashlight (which turns the watch’s screen white and sets it to max brightness). Most available Action button functions are also available as features on the Apple Watch SE and Series 9, but require digging through menus, so being able to turn them on with a single button press is convenient. It's a similar experience to the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.
I set the Action button to start my workout, and I could press it again to pause workouts. I didn’t notice too much deviation in the recorded data on either watch, but because I usually just wait for my SE to detect when I’m working out before starting tracking, I was able to more accurately time my workout tracking on the Ultra 2. The SE, for all its lightweight convenience, can be a little slow to notice when I’m in the gym.
If you work out outside, there’s also the larger battery to take note of. I usually have to charge my SE every night, but I was able to get away with charging it every other night on the Ultra 2. You’ll still be set for hours either way, but you’re less likely to accidentally wear a dead watch with the more expensive model.
Aside from in-exercise tracking, there is also something to be said for the ECG and Cycle Tracking apps. While these are also available on the more modestly priced Series 9, the closest the SE offers is the ability to manually log cycles.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Which Apple Watch should I get?
The best Apple Watch for you may not be the one with the most bells and whistles. I prefer a small, lightweight device with a minimal interface that I can mostly use as a companion while commuting, so the SE isn’t just a budget compromise to me: It’s my favorite option.
The Ultra 2, meanwhile, is great for people who regularly dive, golf, hike, or engage in some other more intense outdoor hobby. Its extra sensors and more rugged design allow it to keep up with more expensive specialty equipment, and despite its bulk, it’s still capable of everyday use cases like tap-to-pay.
The Series 9 is a great compromise. Its smallest option is only a touch larger than the SE’s, it comes in more colors, and it has a few extra sensors without getting as big as the Ultra 2. It’s a good splurge pick, but be sure to look up whether you’ll actually use its extra sensors paying the extra $150 for it.
It's not just you: Google search is getting worse. It's more than the annoying new AI box at the top of the results page, which takes a long time to load and tends to spout nonsense. It's also that the overall quality of search results seems to have declined over time, even as promoted results and ads take up more of the user interface.
But despite the search giant's omnipresence, you aren't stuck with Google. There are a number of alternative search engines out there. None are perfect, but each has positives that make them worth considering. Here are five alternatives that will satisfy most people. And remember: You don't need to switch to relying entirely on one of them. In fact, it's probably best to try out a few different options, and even continue use different search engines for different purposes going forward.
DuckDuckGo
Credit: Justin Pot
DuckDuckGo is the longest standing privacy-oriented alternative to Google, and it remains one of the best in terms of features. The service is free, relying on ad revenue, but that ads are based entirely on what you're searching right at this moment—that is, there's no long-term tracking following you between search sessions.
I, a huge nerd, love that you can browse your search results entirely using the keyboard—just type something in the search bar, use the up and down arrow keys to jump to any selection on the results page, and hit "Enter" to open it. Then there are bangs, which allow you to search other sites directly from the DuckDuckGo search bar—for example, typing "!w" at the beginning of a query will launch the search in Wikipedia, bypassing DuckDuckGo entirely. There are over 13,000 of these shortcuts, useful for directly searching everything from Reddit to WolframAlpha.
The service has maintained a good reputation on the privacy front, at least in terms of the search engine itself; there has been some controversy involving the DuckDuckGo browser, which blocks most tracking but specifically not Microsoft's, because of an agreement between the two companies. Some users likewise aren't thrilled about the "Chat" tab, which integrates with OpenAI. Notably, though, AI recommendations don't come through in standard searches on DuckDuckGo.
Kagi
Credit: Justin Pot
Kagi is a paid search engine with no ads whatsover. The subscription model, the theory goes, allows it to offer quality search results without any temptation on the part of the developers to water them down with ads. The engine has earned praise from the likes of Cory Doctorow and 404 Media's Jason Koebler, which isn't too shabby.
One feature people love is the ability to block matches from URLs you don't like from ever showing up in your search results, which is useful if you notice a particular website is consistently trash. There's also a tool for searching podcasts, which I haven't seen anywhere else. The main downside is that you have to pay. Plans start at $5/month, though that only gives you 300 searches. Unlimited search starts at $10/month. You can try the service for yourself and decide whether it's worth paying for—there's a free version, but it's limited to 100 total searches total.
There has been a bit of controversy around the company that's worth noting, mostly related to how the it is run, the around $2 million of investment money it recently took on after bragging about bootstrapping. Also, the CEO is being annoying about any criticism the company receives. That aside, the search engine itself seems to work well, so give it a shot if you're willing to pony up.
Brave
Credit: Justin Pot
Brave Search is the search engine from the team behind the Brave browser, which is famous for coming with built-in ad blocking. It sets itself apart from DuckDuckGo by having its own search index, built from scratch (DuckDuckGo combines its own index with data from Bing and numerous other companies).
Brave also offers a Goggles feature, which allows you to use custom filters that boost or downgrade outlets based on factors like topic and political persuasion. I found some of this overly simplistic—most websites are not uniformly one thing—but you can check the code to see what's being factored into any Goggle, so it's all very transparent at least. There's also a built-in AI engine that's opt-in—just press up after typing your search query to enable the feature for a specific search. The main shortcoming, in my opinion, is that there's no maps feature whatsoever.
Ecosia is a free, ad-supported search engine that donates all of its profits toward climate action. They are very transparent about this—you can read through the financial reports yourself. The search itself is powered by Bing, and works fairly well.
Perplexity.ai
Credit: Justin Pot
Perplexity is completely different beast. Instead of putting AI generated text at the top of results, it pretty much only offers AI generated text, with links serving as citations for all of the points made. You can ask a question and then a followup, which can be useful to refine your results, and clicking the citation gives you a few interesting links. I find that Perplexity seems to be better at spotting and understanding satire and jokes than Google's AI bot, though obviously you should test it out for yourself and see what comes back.
Obviously anyone who is concerned about AI shouldn't use Perplexity, and there are no doubt going to be privacy concerns for this browser in the long term—it has raised $165 million in venture capital, which isn't something that happens unless investors are expecting a massive return, and we all know where that kind of thing generally leads. For now, though, it's an interesting tool that doesn't have any ads, and it can be useful for some queries.
Or, use Google differently
If you don't want to give up on Google's search results but hate what the service has become, there are a few options. Startpage is a privacy-oriented service that uses Google's search index to deliver results without the tracking. There's also UDM14.com, a simple site that re-directs you to Google's web view. Both are URLs worth keeping bookmarking for those times when you still feel compelled to Google.
When you’re new to running, or getting back into it, the last thing you need is one more barrier. Shoes, appropriate clothes, sweat-resistant sunscreen: These things are hard to do without. But those running watches that it seems like everyone has? You don’t need one on your first day. You don’t even need your phone.
It's kind of strange that fitness has become almost synonymous with tracking fitness: How many steps are you taking? How many calories are you burning? How many minutes per mile was your pace when you went jogging this morning? What was your heart rate?
But you don’t need to know any of this. You can just go for a run, and the results are recorded in the very fibers of your muscles. Your heart and lungs know how hard they worked, and they are in the process of adapting so that they’ll be able to serve you better next time. This process does not require you, at any point, to look at numbers on a screen. So do you need a Garmin, a Fitbit, an Apple Watch, or any of their kin? Absolutely not.
What a running watch provides, and how to do without
I’ve run with a variety of devices and apps over the years, and right now I’m gearing up to review a series of running apps—you can look for those articles in the weeks to come. But my little secret is that I actually prefer to do most of my running without a watch or even a phone app.
Ever since I dusted off my running shoes earlier this spring—about six weeks ago—I’ve been running multiple times each week without a watch. I have a vague idea of time and mileage, but no precise numbers. My brain is empty of thoughts except for “don’t go too fast” and “turn around when I get to the main road.” So here is the data that I’m not getting from a running watch, and how to do without it:
Distance
The watch tells you: how far you’ve gone. Want to run 3 miles? Turn around when your watch says 1.5. You can also add up your miles at the end of the week.
How to do without: Measure a route beforehand. You can use Google Maps (right-click and select “measure distance,” or just plan a walking route through the normal interface). For a nicer interface, use an app like Footpath. The free version lets you measure routes but not save them; honestly, creating a route and then taking a screenshot is good enough for our purposes here. If you’re going to pay for an app with route planning, you might as well get Strava—but more on that later.
You can plan the route before you go, and then when you’ve finished the route, you know you’ve done your mileage. It can be handy to have a few routes on hand for common distances you like to run. There’s a 5-mile loop at my local park, for example, and I know exactly where to jog in my neighborhood if I want a 2-miler.
To keep track of distance from day to day, you can keep a note in your phone, or add it to your training journal.
Time
The watch tells you: how long you’ve been running.
How to do without: In the olden days, you’d use a dumbwatch to track time, or even just look at the clock before you leave home and then again when you come back. Where a watch-user knows that their run was 32 minutes and five seconds, you are free from worrying about such minutia and can be happy to know that you were running for about half an hour.
You can also use a stopwatch on your phone to track the time, if you really want to know. You can also just estimate from your mileage: That three-mile route will take about 30 minutes if you run at a 10:00 pace.
The watch tells you: how many minutes it’s taken you to run each mile; also, what pace you are going right now.
How to do without: Go by feel. If you’re a beginner, the exact pace doesn’t matter; do easy runs at a speed that feels easy. Do faster intervals at a pace that feels challenging but doesn’t leave you gassed. The exact numbers aren’t important.
If you’re an experienced runner, use that experience! How do you feel when you’re running 10-minute miles? 8-minute miles? Run at an effort level that feels right for the programmed run, and every now and then you can run a race or time yourself on a track to recalibrate.
Heart rate
The watch tells you: your current heart rate, and maybe the “zone” you’re in.
How to do without: Honestly, if you’re a beginner, don’t use heart rate at all. Heart rate can be a useful number once you have a pretty good handle on what your personal heart rate is at different effort levels. But the way most watches and apps calculate heart rate is with an error-prone formula that often sets the zones too high or too low.
As a beginner, the only thing that really matters is that you do your easy runs at an easy pace, not a gut-busting breakneck speed that ends up being unsustainable. So, go with perceived effort here too. Do you feel like you could keep this up almost forever? Like you could talk on the phone with only a little bit of heavy breathing? That’s the famous “zone 2.” See, you didn’t need a heart rate monitor after all.
If you're an experienced runner, you probably get more use out of pace data than heart rate data, anyway—but you can always use a chest strap connected to your phone if you'd like the numbers.
Not all watches have this feature, and even among people who have running watches, not everyone uses the coaching. But yes, some watches and some apps provide a running plan, telling you how many miles, at what pace, to run each day. They may also give you guided runs, with a coach in your ear telling you when to speed up and slow down.
Without a watch, you’re on your own for this stuff. But you can also find a plan online that’s not tied to any particular app. Hal Higdon says I’m running 3 miles on Tuesday? Well then, I’ll go out on Tuesday and run (roughly, approximately) 3 miles.
How I train without a running watch
Putting all of this together, here’s what it looks like for me. First of all, I started my running habit this year by getting consistent with my morning walk (30 minutes, so about 1.5 miles.) Over the course of a week, I started adding some bits of running to my walk, slowing down when I got winded or uncontrollably itchy, and after about two weeks, I was running pretty much the whole 1.5 miles in relative comfort. The following week, I started adding a little mileage—doing 2 miles most morning instead of 1.5.
This worked beautifully as a gentle re-introduction to running, and honestly? I don’t think I would have done it this way if I were wearing a watch. It would have been demoralizing to see that my “running” pace was so much slower than what I was logging last year. But once I was in the habit, it was easy to add mileage.
These days, I have a few neighborhood routes in mind. I put on my sun visor and headphones when I go out with the kids to wait for the bus, and as soon as they leave I turn and head off on one of my 3-mile (usually) routes.
I keep track of my mileage in a notebook. Three miles, five times a week, is 15 miles. If I miss a morning or if I want to add more time on my feet, I’ll add another run in the evening or on a weekend day. I’ll usually head to a nearby park where I know the mileage of my favorite trails and roads. If I’d like to try a new route, I’ll pick an album that is about as long as I’d like my run to be (many are around 45 minutes, which is perfect) and take note of which song occurs at the halfway point. When I hear that song, I turn around. That’s a 45-minute run in the books—in the ballpark of four miles or so.
You sure can! If you’re looking at that list above and thinking “aww, I wish I had that data,” wish no more! There are tons of running apps that can track distance, duration, and pace in real time, even speaking up through your headphones to let you know your split times each mile.
Pros of phone based running apps:
No need to buy special equipment like a watch.
Numbers are available anytime you want to pull your phone out and look at them.
You’re probably bringing your phone anyway to listen to music.
You’ll get a map of your run after the fact (thanks to your phone’s GPS).
The app will keep track of your mileage over time.
Cons of phone based running apps:
You may not want to see all those numbers, especially if the thought of logging a “bad” average pace makes you rush warmups or skip walking breaks.
GPS tracking on phones is not as accurate as the tracking on watches.
GPS tracking tends to run a phone’s battery down faster than if you weren’t using the GPS.
I enjoy the guidance I get from running apps if I’m doing a specific workout—like one I tried recently that involved segments of 0.6, 0.5, and 0.35 miles. No way was I going to track that manually, but the pleasant voice in my ear told me exactly when to start and stop each interval, and cued me to speed up or slow down if I was getting off pace.
If you do decide to get a running watch later on, they’ll have the same features as the phone apps, but with better battery life and an easier way to view the numbers.
What are the best running apps to use if you don’t have a phone?
The classic is Strava. In fact, if the community aspect of a running app or watch is what’s most important to you, you’ll definitely want to get on Strava. People who log their runs on a Garmin or another device will often upload to Strava so they can have everything in one place. But you can also “record” a run from the Strava app directly, no extra device needed. Just beware that the social features can end up revealing your location, so dip into the privacy settings to make sure you aren’t sharing more than you intend.
How do you track mileage when running without a watch?
Measure or estimate the length of each run, ideally by measuring on a tool like Google Maps or Footpath. (In the olden days, we would sometimes drive a route and use the odometer.)
Add up your mileage over time by keeping notes on a calendar (paper or digital), a notebook (paper or digital), or any other way you’d keep track of a running tally.
How do you pace yourself when running without a watch?
By paying attention to your body. For an easy or “zone 2” pace, you’ll want to feel like you’re breathing easy and like you can keep going forever. Faster paces might feel harder, but they’ll still be sustainable enough that you can make it the entire distance you intend, without collapsing into a heap by the end. You’ll learn over time what each appropriate pace feels like.
On guided runs, offered by many running apps, the coach or narrator will help you figure out the right effort level. They might ask you to aim for a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, or they might describe in words how your body should feel when you’re at a given pace.
Do I need a watch to run a marathon?
You don’t make it to the start line of a marathon without having a decent amount of running experience under your belt. And these days, when you’ve been running regularly for the amount of time it takes to build a base and then train for a marathon…you’ll probably have already given in to the temptation to buy a running watch.
But it’s not necessary in any way. You can do your training by mapping out routes ahead of time, gauging your pace based on how you feel, and writing down your weekly mileage in a notebook. This is how almost everybody trained until running watches became more accessible about 10 or 15 years ago. The race organizers are keeping track of your time (there’s a chip in your bib, usually), and they’ll post mile markers along the course so you know where you are.
On race day, you probably won’t want to use your running app; it drains battery, and you’ll be out there a long time. Instead, you can pace yourself by wearing a basic stopwatch and comparing your time at each mile marker with pre-calculated split times. Sound complicated? It’s not—just grab one of these temporary tattoos that has them all calculated for you.
Google garnered quite a bit of backlash when it previously suggested the Pixel 8 wouldn’t get Gemini Nano, thus disallowing its base smartphone from on-device AI features. However, it recently went back on that decision, saying that it would actually bring AI features to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a after all. Now, reports indicate that Gemini Nano may soon be rolling out to the Pixel 8. The AI features themselves don't seem to be available just yet, but the option to enable them is, so it's a good idea to lay that groundwork now before the features actually roll out.
While many updates to your device might automatically have new features enabled by default, the Pixel 8's Gemini Nano features need to be enabled. That’s because the features that Nano will offer weren’t technically activated on the device’s chip just yet. To get around this, Google has now added a toggle that will turn on Gemini, but you’ll have to access the Android AICore features on your phone to set it up.
How to activate Gemini on Pixel 8
To activate Gemini on Pixel 8, you’ll first need to enable developer settings. To do this, navigate to Settings > AboutPhone and find the build number in the list (it’s down near the bottom).
Tap the build number seven times. You should see a popup saying that developer mode has been enabled.
To activate Gemini on Pixel 8, navigate to Settings > System > Developeroptions > AICoreSettings.
If you have the toggle available on your phone, it should appear as an option in the list that reads Enableon-deviceGeminifeatures.
Tap the toggle to turn it on, and boom, you’ve activated Gemini features.
So what does that do exactly? Unfortunately, right now, it doesn’t really do anything. Google hasn’t released any of the on-device Gemini features to the Pixel 8, so we’ll need to wait for Google to add them to the device in a future Android Feature Drop—speaking of, Google just dropped eight new features in May’s feature drop.
Until the Gemini features actually release, this toggle doesn’t appear to do anything. But, having it enabled will prepare your device for any future feature releases ahead of time.
You’re not wrong to worry about getting scammed; fraud in general is on the rise (and anyone can be a victim), with losses attributed to various kinds of fraud topping $10 billion in 2023 alone. And good old-fashioned bank fraud is on the rise, too—including check fraud, which might seem surprising since paper check use has been declining since forever. Although we write fewer checks, the value of those checks has risen from an average of $673 in 1990 to $2,562 today, making them an attractive target.
But avoiding paper checks doesn’t insulate you from fraud. Paying for things online using credit cards or similar tools includes some built-in fraud protections, but there are times when using an e-check and having funds pulled directly from your bank account is preferable (when there’s a “convenience fee” for using a credit card, for example), or you might have money coming in via wire transfer. In either case, you’re suddenly faced with giving away your bank details—the routing number, account number, and wire transfer or SWIFT codes—in order to complete the transaction. And you might reasonably wonder if it’s safe to just give this information away.
The answer is: Yes, generally speaking. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.
Banking information to keep an eye on
A quick rundown of the relevant details we’re talking about here; when I say “bank details,” I mean:
Routing number: A nine-digit code that identifies your specific bank.
Account number: The number of digits in your account number varies. It’s a unique identifier for a specific account at the bank or financial institution.
ABA number: Also called a “wire routing number,” this nine-digit code is an alternative way to transfer funds internationally.
Most of these numbers are pretty easy to find. If you have paper checks issued by your bank, the routing number is printed on the bottom left, and your account number is printed to the right of that. And you can usually find your bank’s routing number and SWIFT and ABA codes by logging on to their website, calling and asking, or justlooking them uponline.
As I said earlier, your routing and account numbers are literally printed on your checks. These numbers are used in what are known as Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions to move money between different banks and accounts. This means anyone who sees your check also sees your ACH info—and with that info they can commit some pretty easy fraud against your accounts. So when should you worry?
When it's OK to share your banking details
First, take note of the fact that you share your routing number and account numbers all the time. Every time you send a check, sign up for direct deposit, or enter your banking info to pay taxes or a utility bill (or sell tickets on StubHub) you’re sharing those numbers. They’re out there. A few things to keep in mind:
Just having your account number is meaningless. No one can do anything with just your account number. They also need your bank’s routing number.
As noted, your bank’s routing number and ABA and SWIFT codes are public info and can be looked up online, so there’s no reason to guard those with your life.
So, when should you feel safe sharing your bank routing and account numbers? A few guidelines:
If you would be comfortable writing a check, it’s generally OK to share your bank details.
If you know why you’re being asked for this information—you’re setting up an account, or direct deposit, or paying a bill using ACH to avoid a fee, for example—it’s generally OK.
If there’s a legitimate, compelling reason the organization needs this info (e.g., direct deposit) or you have a compelling reason to offer it up (e.g., avoiding a fee if you pay via credit card or PayPal).
Keep in mind that when you give someone authorization to use ACH to access your bank accounts, you can always revoke that authorization, and you generally have 60 days to report fraud involving your bank account as an individual.
When you should worry
Of course, scammers can wreak serious havoc on your financial life if they get both your routing and account numbers, so you definitely do need to think twice before supplying them. Here’s when to worry:
Insecure communications. Never give your bank details to anyone who requests them via email or text.
Supplied links. If you’re sent a link to enter your bank details, be suspicious. Always go directly to the website of any business or organization to enter routing and account info.
Pressure. If you prefer to use another form of payment—a credit card, for example—but you’re pressured to give out your bank details, be suspicious.
Bottom line: the key is your account number. Scammers can’t do anything without that, and they can find out everything else on their own, so if you don’t give out your account number there isn’t much they can do to you. On the other hand, if you need to get paid via wire transfer or need to pay a bill using your bank account, it’s generally safe to provide your bank details as long as you expected the request. Just be wary if it’s unexpected, or if you don’t understand why it’s necessary to provide that information.
I’m a cheap traveler, which means I’m often packing light. When I took a five-day trip to Paris a few years ago, on a budget airline that charges a fee to bring a carry-on, everything had to fit in a small bag under the seat in front of me. Friends, I did it. You can, too.
I first wrote about this trip right when I returned, in 2017, but I can say now that I still use these techniques (except packing dress shoes for a casual trip—what was I thinking??). We’ll get to the specifics of what I packed and how, but this is a feat that’s more about the planning than the execution. Here’s what I mean.
Measure your bag
The space under the seat in front of you is pretty roomy: It’s big enough for an average-sized backpack, or an overstuffed messenger bag. But don’t eyeball it! If you misjudge, and you can’t quite wedge your bag into that space, the crew will ask you to put it somewhere else. That could mean another fee, or depending on how crowded the plane is, you might even need to hand it over to be gate-checked.
Avoid this minor nightmare by actually checking the airline’s bag measurements. On my trip, the carrier (the now-defunct(?) Wow airlines) allowed 17 by 13 by 10 inches for personal items, including handles and wheels, and with a weight limit of 22 pounds. Check your airline’s website, and then whip out a tape measure and verify. (If your bag is soft-sided, make sure to measure it when it’s fully packed.)
To really be prepared, though, you also need a Plan B. Maybe you’ll buy a few too many souvenirs, and need to check your bag. Or sometimes on domestic flights, you’ll end up in a tiny airplane that doesn’t have any space under the seat, and you’ll have to gate-check your stuff. Here’s your insurance policy: Pack your in-flight essentials in a small purse or packing cube that you can tuck in the seat back pocket. This way, if you have to give up your bag, you’ll have the important things with you.
I don’t have a magical spell to fit a suit or a formal dress or a sleeping bag into a carry-on. The one-bag approach only really works for people with simple needs who are going on simple trips. I didn’t bring a laptop or any workout gear. I did bring a few changes of clothes, essential toiletries, a sketchbook, and a phone charger.
I didn’t bother with soap or shampoo, since I knew I could buy those at my destination. (Showering with French soap made my stay in France feel just a little more authentic.) My husband bought a six-pack of electrical outlet adapters, and I caught him shoving the whole thing in his bag. “Wait, how many plug-in things are we bringing?” I asked. Just two: his phone charger, and mine. So we left four of the adapters at home.
I packed fresh socks, shirts, and underwear for each day, and planned to wear a dress once and my shorts and pants twice each. (If I were more hardcore, I would have packed just two outfits and washed one in the hotel sink each night.) I resisted the urge to pack a skirt “just in case.”
To winnow the “just in case” pile, ask yourself, what would I do if I needed this but didn’t have it? Without the skirt, I would just wear my dress or shorts instead. That’s fine; the skirt stays home. But if I got sore feet and didn’t have my packet of blister bandages, I’d have to walk the streets of Paris looking for a place to buy some. The bandages came with me.
Dump out your bag, so you’re not bringing any detritus from a previous trip, and then begin to pack it wisely. A few tips:
Choose the smallest item that will do the job. Bring the travel-size toothpaste, even if the full size is technically small enough to get through security. Compare your jackets and sweaters, and bring the thinnest one that’s still warm enough—or perhaps you’d prefer a lightweight scarf that you can wear as a shawl?
Roll your clothes. Rolling is the most compact way to pack. Put socks and t-shirts on the inside of the roll, and carefully smooth your wrinkleable items on the outside. Know how you will remove any surprise wrinkles: Does your room come with an iron? Will you steam the clothes while you’re in the shower?
Use packing cubes. It wasn’t until after the Paris trip that I discovered just how much time and trouble packing cubes can save. They don’t save space, but they make a tightly packed bag so much easier to pack and unpack.
Wear the biggest items. You’ll have more room in your bag if you wear your jeans and pack your shorts than vice-versa. You can also wear your travel pillow on the flight, and strap it to your bag while you’re trekking through the airport.
Make sure everything is accessible. You’ll be miserable if the interior of your bag is a random jumble. This is where the packing cubes come in, or you can at least arrange your rolls of clothes to divide up the space as needed. Make good use of pockets, too: flat things in the laptop compartment, for example, and your passport and phone charger in whatever pocket is easiest to reach.
You do, eventually, have to bring everything back. If you brought travel-size toiletries, maybe you can finish them off and throw them out before you come home. You also don’t have to worry as much about keeping your clothes unwrinkled. These tweaks can gain you a few cubic inches.
If you’re serious about bringing home souvenirs, consider bringing a collapsible duffel from home, or buying a cheap bag on the road. Then you’re only paying the bag check fee in one direction, not both. Also compare the bag check fee with the cost (and time delay) of mailing things home.
But if you won’t have much room for souvenirs, keep an eye out during your trip for things that pack light. I picked up a French-language cooking magazine for my mom, and translated the tastiest recipes on the flight home. Foreign snacks also make great gifts, and are easy enough to tuck into small spaces. Photos, videos, and good old-fashioned memories make great souvenirs, and they don’t take up any physical space at all. (You could even get a photo book printed when you return, or write down your thoughts in a journal, to make them more tangible without encroaching on your underwear.)
What I actually packed
A top-down view of my bag. In the back pocket (top of photo): book and sketchbook, flattened purse, printouts of documents. Middle pocket: Clothing rolls, sitting on top of carefully packed/stuffed shoes. Front pocket: toiletries, art supplies, wallet, battery pack. In pockets not shown: charging cable, passport, ziploc bag of liquid toiletries.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
OK, time to prove that this is for real. Here’s what I did.
The bag: I used an Eddie Bauer hybrid messenger bag/backpack that I bought many years ago; it’s now discontinued. We have gone on many one-bag trips, this bag and I. My husband, who packed equally light, used a Swiss Gear backpack similar to this one.
Large and unwieldy Items: My one extravagance was a pair of heeled t-strap leather shoes. I stuffed my socks and underwear inside of them, so they held their shape, and then wrapped them loosely in a plastic bag so they wouldn’t get the rest of my items dirty. I also had a travel pillow, strapped to the handle of my bag.
Clothes: For a four-night trip, I brought four shirts, one dress, one pair of shorts, and five sets of socks and underwear. I wore sneakers, a jacket, and a shirt-and-pants outfit.
Toiletries: I had a small zippered pouch with the likes of lipstick and deodorant, and a Ziploc with just a few liquid-phase personal items like moisturizer and toothpaste.
Electronics: All I need for a non-work trip is my phone, a charging cable, and a battery pack. (My husband prefers an electric toothbrush and razor at home, but made do with analog versions for this trip.) We also brought a headphone splitter and a pair of earbuds for each of us.
Fun stuff: A book for the plane; a sketchbook and a small pack of art supplies; Clif bars; wallet, passport, etc.
In hindsight, I only made a few mistakes. I should have left the fancy shoes behind, and either gone without or brought a pair of plain flats instead. I didn’t need the jacket that I wore in the airport, although I’m glad I brought it. And that’s about it; this is one of the most perfectly calibrated trips I’ve taken.
I’ve had a rough time in the past, though. I can think of two trips where I ended up freezing because I didn’t want the bulk of packing warm clothes. In one of those cases, my mistake was that I only had skirts to wear; a pair of fleece-lined tights would have only taken up a tiny amount of space in my bag, and would have been a lifesaver. On a few trips, I forgot to pack a purse, because somehow in my mind the messenger bag was my purse. It is much better to have a real purse (or tote bag, or laptop bag) for your daily excursions instead of having to dump out all your clothes on the hotel bed to make do with your carry-on.
Now, I visualize each day’s activities when I write my packing list, and this helps me remember things like purses. And I apply the “just in case” test to all of those “just in case” items. And now I’m the person who hops off a plane with just a small backpack, breezes past the baggage claim, and takes the Métro to her Airbnb. It’s a great way to vacation.
Generative AI applications like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot are known as chatbots, since you're meant to talk to them. So, I guess it's only natural that chat apps would want to add chatbots to their platforms—whether or not users actually, you know, use them.
Telegram is the latest such app to add a chatbot to its array of features. Its chatbot of choice? Copilot. While Copilot has landed on other Microsoft-owned platforms before, Telegram is among the first third-party apps to offer Copilot functionality directly, although it certainly isn't obvious if you open the app today.
When I first learned about Telegram's Copilot integration, I fired up the app and was met with a whole lot of nothing. That isn't totally unusual for new features, as they usually roll out gradually to users over time. However, as it turns out, accessing Copilot in Telegram is a little convoluted. You actually need to search for Copilot by its Telegram username, @CopilotOfficialBot. Don't just search for "Copilot," as you'll find an assortment of unauthorized options. I don't advise chatting with any random bot you find on Telegram, certainly not any masquerading as the real deal.
You can also access it from Microsoft's "Copilot for Telegram" site. You'll want to open the link on the device you use Telegram on, as when you select "Try now," it'll redirect to Telegram.
Whichever way you pull up the Copilot bot, you'll end up in a new chat with Copilot. A splash screen informs you that Copilot in Telegram is in beta, and invites you to hit "Start" to use the bot. Once you do, you're warned about the risks of using AI. (Hallucinations happen all the time, after all.) In order to proceed, hit "I Accept." You can start sending messages without accepting, but the bot will just respond with the original prompt to accept, so if you want to get anywhere you will need to agree to the terms.
Credit: Lifehacker
From here, you'll need to verify the phone number you use with Telegram. Hit "Send my mobile number," then hit "OK" on the pop-up to share your phone number with Copilot. You don't need to wait for a verification text: Once you share your number, you're good to go.
From here, it's Copilot, but in Telegram. You can ask the bot questions and queries for a variety of subjects and tasks, and the bot will respond in kind. This version of the bot is connected to the internet, so it can look up real-time information for you, but you can't use Copilot's image generator here. If you try, the bot will redirect you to the main Copilot site, the iOS app, or the Android app.
There's isn't much here that's particularly Telegram-related, other than a function that will share an invite to your friends to try Copilot. You also only have 30 "turns" per day, so just keep that in mind before you get too carried away with chatting.
At the end of the day, this seems to be a play by Microsoft to get Copilot in the hands of more users. Maybe you wouldn't download the Copilot app yourself, but if you're an avid Telegram user, you may be curious enough to try using the bot in between conversations. I suspect this won't be the last Copilot integration we see from Microsoft, as the company continues to expand its AI strategy.
You can upgrade your PC to Windows 11 Pro on sale for $24.97 right now (reg. $199) through May 31. The activation key is from a Microsoft-verified partner and backed by over 200 user reviews, and the Pro version of Windows 11 has some great features like Azure AD, Hyper-V, Windows Sandbox, and BitLocker Device Encryption.
Windows 11 comes with features like snap layouts, improved voice typing, seamless redocking, and a redesigned search tool. Other improvements include Biometrics login on supported devices, remote desktop access, TPM 2.0 for hardware-based security, Smart App Control, and Windows Studio Effects for video calls, with noise suppression and background blurring. The license code can be used to upgrade two separate PCs or other compatible devices.
You can get Windows 11 Pro on sale for $24.97 right now (reg. $199) until May 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices may change at any time.
There's a reason why an estimated 180 million people in the US are Amazon Prime members—and it's not Prime Video's user interface, that's for sure. Even if you're not the biggest fan of the company's founder, business practices, or workplace culture, it's incredibly hard to resist the convenience of (usually) fast and free shipping.
It became even more difficult in 2022, when members could also get a one-year subscription to Grubhub+ at no additional cost, entitling them to even more opportunities for free delivery—albeit for a limited time. But that's no longer the case: Thanks to a recent upgrade, that perk is now permanent for Prime members.
But before you get free delivery on your pizza order, you'll need to activate the benefit. Here's what to know.
How to activate the Grubhub+ benefit on Amazon Prime
The free Grubhub+ membership isn't automatically applied to Amazon Prime members' accounts: You have to activate it in order to take advantage of the benefit. To do this, go to www.amazon.com/grubhubwhile signed into your Prime account, and click the yellow box that says "Activate now."
Alternatively, if you've recently received an email from Amazon (more specifically, store-news@amazon.com) with the subject line "New update to your Prime membership" you can activate Grubhub+ by clicking the yellow "Activate now" box.
Either way, once you've activated the benefit, you should receive an email from Amazon confirming your new permanent Grubhub+ subscription. If you already pay for Grubhub+, that plan will be canceled as soon as you activate your free subscription through Amazon Prime. Of course, if you cancel your Amazon Prime membership, your free Grubhub+ subscription will go away too.
If you no longer want the free Grubhub+ subscription, you can cancel it by going to the “Manage apps & services with data access” within the “Your Account” page on Amazon and unlinking your Grubhub and Amazon accounts, or by contacting Grubhub customer support.
What are the benefits of permanent Grubhub+ membership?
Removing the one-year limit to Amazon Prime members' free Grubhub+ subscription is important for a few reasons. First, there's the fiscal benefit: Now, as long as you keep paying the $139/year Amazon Prime membership fee, you'll get a $120/year Grubhub+ subscription for free indefinitely, instead of only once.
This upgrade also makes the free Grubhub+ benefit more appealing to Prime members who may be hesitant to sign up for trials or subscriptions because they want to avoid the worry and hassle of losing benefits, or being auto-subscribed to a paid service when the trial ends.
Plus, now you have the option of placing your orders through Amazon, in addition to the Grubhub site or app.
And, of course, there's all the usual stuff you get with a Grubhub+ subscription, including:
Free delivery on eligible order of $12 or more (before tax, tip, and fees)
Lower service fees
5% Grubhub+ credit back on pickup orders (which you can use on future orders for the next 90 days)
Other exclusive offers and deals
Once you activate your free Grubhub+ subscription, you can get $5 off one $25+ order fromnow through June 3, 2024 at 2:59 am EST (June 2, 2024 at 11:59pm PST), or while supplies last, by entering code PRIME5 at checkout.
It’s a shame that Girl Scout Cookie season is so short. Although it gives me something to look forward to at the end of March, once May rolls around I’ve completely cleared out my cookie stash. If you missed Girl Scout Cookie season (or you just miss it emotionally), I’d like to help you work through these tough months before the next one rolls around. For the next few weeks, I’ll be testing out copycat recipes for the most popular flavors so you can make them at home. Let’s start with the superstar of simplicity: Thin Mints.
All GSC fans know that the thin mint sets the standard for mint cookies. It’s a small bite. A crunchy, no-frills chocolate cookie on the inside with a thin chocolate shell. Then the cool breeze of mint passes through. It’s always best to buy at least two boxes: one for the first 10 minutes, and the second to pace yourself.
Imitating this famous cookie is relatively simple. The cookie itself can be made with any reliable chocolate pâte sablée recipe (essentially a mixture of butter, sugar, a bit of egg, cocoa, and flour) with the addition of mint extract. The dough is easy to roll out, and baking them is a breeze. To make the cookie dough, I modified this recipe from Baked by an Introvert.
The site above mentions “cookies are best when served cold,” which is true—many of us enjoy thin mints out of the freezer—but that’s less a nice tip here and more a necessity. That's because the coating is too damn soft at room temperature, due to the recipe's inclusion of vegetable oil. To get around this, I recommend using melted chocolate morsels only, which will still be tacky at room temperature but not gooey. Alternatively, you can use chocolate melting wafers (like the one below), which are designed to set without tempering.
When rolling out the cookies in this recipe, try to take the dough down to shy of a quarter-inch in thickness for a more accurate copycat (they’re Thin Mints after all). If the dough is too hard to handle at that thinness, it’s okay to make thick mints. Just make sure to bake them for a minute or two longer so they’re crisp after they cool.
Thin Mints Copycat Recipe
Ingredients:
For the dough
1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 stick butter, room temperature
⅓ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon peppermint extract
1 egg white
For the chocolate coating
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels, melted (or melting wafers)
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet tray with parchment paper.
2. Use a rubber spatula and mix the soft butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until well combined. There’s no need to make it fluffy. Add the salt, egg, and extracts. In a small bowl, whisk the flour and cocoa powder together to disperse the cocoa evenly, then mix it into the butter mixture in two installments. This will help ensure you don’t end up wearing the cocoa powder. The dough will be thick but workable.
2. Place the dough on plastic wrap or parchment paper. Flatten the dough into discs with the wrap, and pop them into the fridge for about 30 minutes.
3. Dust the countertop with a bit of flour and unwrap the dough. Roll it into a thin sheet, rotating it after every pass with the pin to ensure the dough isn’t sticking. Use a round cookie cutter, 1.5-inch or 2-inch is fine, and cut out circles. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet an inch apart. Bake them at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes, or until firm and matte. Cool them completely.
4. To make the chocolate coating, gently melt the morsels in the microwave in 30 or 15 second bursts. Dunk each cookie in the coating and fish it out with a fork. Use the flat edge of a rubber spatula to swipe off most of the chocolate so the coating is thin. Put the cookies on a wire rack to cool, and you can even pop them in the fridge for ten minutes to speed up the cooling.
Enjoy out of the fridge or freezer for a chilled treat, and you can thank the Girl Scouts for this inspiration by donating if you like.
This week, security research group Zscaler reported they had discovered over 90 malicious Android apps available on the Play Store. The apps had been installed more than 5.5 million times collectively, and many were part of the ongoing Anatsa malware campaign, which has targeted more than 650 apps tied to financial institutions.
As of February of 2024, Anatsa infected at least 150,000 devices via several decoy apps, many of which are marketed as productivity software. While we don't know the identities of most of the apps involved in this latest attack, we do know about two: PDF Reader & File Manager, as well as QR Reader & File Manager. At the time of Zscaler’s investigation, the two apps had garnered over 70,000 installs between them.
How these malicious apps infect your phone
Despite Google’s review process for apps applying to the Play Store, malware campaigns like Anatsa are sneaky, and can utilize a multi-stage payload loading mechanism to help them evade these reviews. In other words, the app masquerade as legitimate, and only start a stealthy infection once installed on the user's device.
You might think you're downloading a PDF reader, but once installed and opened, the "dropper" app will connect to a C2 server and retrieve the configurations and essential strings that it needs. It will then download a DEX file containing the malicious code and activate it on your device. From there, the Anatsa payload URL is downloaded through a configuration file, and that DEX file installs the malware payload, completing the process and infecting your phone.
Luckily, all identified apps have been removed from the Play Store, and their developers have been banned. However, that won't delete these apps from your smartphone if you downloaded them. If you have either of these two apps on your phone, uninstall them immediately. You should also change the passcodes of any banking apps that you might have used on your phone to avoid your accounts being accessed by the threat actors behind Anatsa.
How to avoid malware apps
While malicious developers can be tricky with their attacks, there are some tips you can follow to determine if an app on the Play Store is legitimate. The first is to really pay attention to the app's listing: Look at its name, the description, and its images: Does everything match with the service the developers are advertising? Is the copy well written, or is it riddled with mistakes? The less professional the page appears, the more likely it is to be a fake.
Only download apps from publishers you can trust. This is especially true if you’re downloading a popular app, as malware apps sometimes impersonate high-profile apps on phones and other devices. Double-check the developer behind the app to make sure they're who they purport to be.
You should also check the requirements and permissions that the app asks for. Anything that asks for accessibility should usually be avoided, as this is one of the main ways that malware groups bypass the security parameters placed on many newer devices. Other permissions to look out for include apps asking for access to your contact list and SMS. If a PDF reader wants your contacts, that's a big red flag.
Read through the reviews for the app, as well. Watch out for apps that don't have many ratings, or ones where all the reviews seem suspiciously positive.
The app's support email address can also be telling. Many malware apps will have a random Gmail account (or other free email account) tied to their support email. While not every app will have a professional email listed for support, you can usually tell if something might be sketchy based on the information that the group provides.
Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to avoid malware apps unless you don’t install apps at all. But, if you’re mindful of the apps that you’re installing and pay attention to the permissions, developer, and other important information, you can usually pick up on whether or not an app is sketchy.
It's no secret that Apple is working on AI features that will roll out with iOS 18 and macOS 15. When you update your iPhone, iPad, and Mac later this year, you may find a more natural-sounding Siri, or be able to generate emojis based on whatever you're talking about in Messages. Pretty cool—but how will Apple protect your data while the AI processes all these nifty new features?
While reports suggest Apple will be running many of these features on-device, at least with its newer products, rumors also say the company is planning on outsourcing much of the processing to the cloud. That's not atypical from the rest of the industry: Most AI processing right now is happening in the cloud, simply because AI processing is intense. It's why companies continue to push the capabilities of their NPUs (or neural processing units), which are specialized processors that exclusively handle AI functions. Apple has been using NPUs for years, but made a big show of touting the new M4 chip's beefy NPUs earlier this year, while Microsoft started a new AI-PC standard with its Copilot+ PC line.
Running AI on-device is more secure
Of course, whether or not your AI features are running on your phone or in the cloud probably doesn't matter to you, so long as the feature is working as it should. The issue, however, is that running these features on-device provides an inherently more secure experience. By pushing the processing to the cloud, companies risk exposing user data to anyone with access, especially when the service doing the processing needs to decrypt user data first. Exposure risks include the employees of the company in question, but also bad actors that may try to break into the company's cloud servers and scrape whatever customer information they can find.
This is already an issue with services like ChatGPT, and why I advise not to share any personal information with most cloud-based AI services: Your conversations are not private, and are all being fed to these servers, both for storage and to train the AI model. Companies with an investment in user privacy, like Apple, prefer to use on-device solutions whenever possible, since they can demonstrate that keeping user data isolated to their phone, tablet, or computer keeps it out of anyone else's hands.
How Apple will use 'Secure Enclave' to protect AI data
While newer Apple hardware should be powerful enough to run the AI features the company is cooking up, for older devices, or for features that are too power intensive, it may be forced to turn to cloud-based servers in order to offer those features at all. However, if a report from The Information and cited by Android Authority is accurate, the company may have found a solution: the Secure Enclave.
The Secure Enclave is already part of the hardware of most Apple products in use today. It's a part of the SoC (System on a Chip) that is kept separate from the processor, and its job is to store your most sensitive information, like your encryption keys and biometric data. That way, if the main processor is ever compromised, the Secure Enclave ensures bad actors can't access its data.
According to The Information, Apple is working on an AI-cloud solution that would send all AI user data to the Secure Enclaves of M2 Ultra and M4 Macs running in its server farms. There, those server Macs could process the request while preserving encryption, then send the results back to the user. In theory, this process would keep user data safe while also giving older devices access to Apple's latest AI features.
We won't know for sure whether this is Apple's plan until they reveal what they're working on at WWDC, if at all. If Apple stays hush-hush about how it will protect AI user data, we may never know exactly. But seeing as Apple touts itself as a company that cares about user privacy, the approach (or any approach that ensures cloud-based data is end-to-end encrypted) would make a lot of sense.
The logic of film marketing suggests we need to know everything about a movie before we’ll pony up for a movie ticket—but that doesn’t mean that’s the right way to see every movie. There’s a lot of competition for our attention these days, meaning many of us do a lotof vetting before we actually sit down to watch something. But trailers too often telegraph a film's entire plot, even as social media discourse memes its cleverest moments to death before you get a chance to buy a ticket (or open up Netflix).
The spoiler debate can get annoying, sure, but some movies simply seem designed to be watched with as little foreknowledge as is possible. Some of them feature twist endings, but sometimes even knowing the premise is a spoiler. (In the spirit of the piece, you’ll forgive me if I don’t say much about the plots of these movies, and the trailers are included only for illustrative purposes. Yes, this is a little weird; use your best judgement.)
Barbarian (2022)
In the opening minutes of this twisty thriller, Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb-esque rental house in a sketchy neighborhood, only to find it's been double-booked by Bill Skarsgård. When she feels bad and lets him in, you're pretty sure you know what kind of horror movie you've stepped into. Nope!
The story of a Black telemarketer who pretends to be white, Boots Riley’s directorial debut plays, at first, like a strictly social satire before veering into territory both more biting and way more fucked up.
There have been countless “cabin in the wood”-style horror movies, with every possible variation of the many associated tropes done to...death; Sam Raimi was already parodying and subverting the genre with his Evil Dead movies way back in the 1980s. We know these movies, and we know how they’re meant to work. While it initially looks like Cabin in the Woods is a Scream-style deconstruction of the subgenre, it soon reveals itself to be something far more ambitious. While the trailer makes it clear that something weird is going on, the biggest twists are far from predictable.
Bong Joon-Ho’s unlikely and deserving Best Picture Oscar winner starts out like a darkly humorous satire, the kind of sharply pointed comedy of manners and social class that South Korean filmmakers often do so well. Then it nimbly shifts gears, and spends the rest of its runtime careering into much darker territory.
The number one question that people ask about Django Unchained on Google is “is Django Unchained historically accurate?” Which suggests that fewer people have seen a Quentin Tarantino movie than one might suspect. Every Tarantino film of the past decade+ has taken place in some sort of real-life historical context, then tossed history out the window in often rather satisfying ways, as happens here. Save your internet deep dive for after you’ve watched it.
The first and third Cloverfield movies are sci-fi action spectacles, and the only thing I can really say about 10 Cloverfield Lane is that it's not. A woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets into a car accident and is rescued by an older man (John Goodman), but rescued might not be the right word. I've already said enough.
Even protagonist Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) comes into Oldboy with no idea what's going on. Bad and confusing things happen to him, he has no idea why, and his subsequent quest for vengeance (and answers...but mostly vengeance) goes to truly wild places.
The movie that put Christopher Nolan on the map was a genuinely original mind-blower back in 2000, and still retains much of its power to surprise (and confuse) two decades later. If you can watch it without knowing the premise, do so immediately.
Another mind-bender from the brothers Nolan, The Prestige takes a story inspired by real-life warring magicians and performs some slight of hand of its own, deftly blending genres and taking a hard left turn from its initial straightforward period piece trappings.
Come for Robert Pattinson in an old-timey mustache, stay for the gallery wall-worthy cinematography, subversion of vintage movie-making techniques, an all-time weird Willem Dafoe performance, and a plot that goes places.
One of the darkest comedies of recent memory, Ruben Östlund's surprising Oscar frontrunner feels like at least three movies in one, with narratives that take sharp right turns at unexpected moments, taking potshots at greed and capitalism all the way. Best watched in ignorance, and on an empty stomach.
The anxious fever dream that is Beau Is Afraid isn't going to be for everyone, but there's really no point in trying to figure out if it's going to work for you without diving right in—and certainly if you've seen director Ari Aster's earlier films Hereditary and Midsommar, you can understand why you want to go in knowing as little as possible. (It was my favorite movie of 2023, but at least as many hated it as loved it.)
The elements of noir are solidly in place in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel, right down to Leonardo DiCaprio’s rumpled suit and period Boston accent. Then the tone quickly shifts, leaving us guessing as to what genre of film we’re in, exactly.
Director Molly Hewitt’s colorful directorial debut didn't make a huge splash, but it’s surely destined for cult status. The upbeat sex-and-king-positive film involves a dominatrix who can communicate with the dead, and I’ll leave it there.
Where to stream: VHX TV
Dark City (1998)
It doesn’t take long for Dark City to reveal itself as something other than the highly stylized neo-noir that it sets out as, but the plot twists and nimble blending of genres make it consistently surprising. The superior director’s cut (available for rental via Prime Video) fleshes out the world while doing a lot less hand-holding, so it’s even better if you’re looking for surprises.
Is it sci-fi? Is it horror? I'm not telling. For fans of all things trippy and mindbending, it works on just about every level.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Freevee, Crackle, Amazon Prime
Us (2019)
The contours of Jordan Peele’s followup to Get Out don’t become clear until the final act, but the film never feels like it’s waiting on a big reveal or a twist (though there are a few). The surprises are littered throughout.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star as the sibling caretakers of a rural California horse ranch, who find themselves beset by...something? Wildly original, if frequently vexing, the tagline calling it a "neo-Western science fiction horror film" tells you all you need to know.
Larry Charles directs this jaw-dropingly crude and goofy musical, written by stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, who play separated at birth twin siblings, but you'll know this definitely isn't The Parent Trap. long before the sewer boys appear onscreen. If you need additional convincing, the supporting cast includes Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, and Megan Thee Stallion.
One of our most interesting, wildly inconsistent filmmakers, M. Night Shyalaman managed the closest thing he’s had to a slam-dunk in years with Split, a horror thriller anchored by a brilliant (if, problematic) performance from James McAvoy. Though there are surprises right up until the end, the director eschews his traditional reliance on a twist ending in favor of something more like a twist beginning.
This Elizabeth Taylor vehicle with co-stars Katherine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift may be quite a bit talkier than many of the other movies here, but its impressive weirdness (drawn from the Tennessee Williams play) piles up throughout its runtime. By the end, you’ll almost certainly be wondering how this ever could have possibly been made, with this cast, in 1959.
In genre terms, IMDb considers Big Trouble in Little China a fantasy martial arts action-comedy (that began life as a western), and that’s probably more than enough information to tell you if it’s for you. By quite a stretch it’s the weirdest of the great John Carpenter/Kurt Russell collaborations of the 1980s.
As absurd as film gets, led by a fabulous performance from Juliette Binoche, I’m not sure I could spoil Slack Bay if I wanted to. As much as any film here, it defies even the most rigorous attempt at summary.
Finally: a Universal monster reboot done right. This one that takes the bare bones premise of H.G. Wells novel (and James Whale’s excellent 1933 film version) and by shifting its focus, creates something new and interesting.
I make no guarantees, as this seems to be very much a love it/hate it affair...but I’m personally team Malignant. Its genuinely batshit plot twists are just this side of silly, and, when blended with some over-the-top horror, all add up to a good time at the movies.
Though slightly less common in 1997, when digital effects were expensive and streaming services weren’t desperate for genre content, this type of space-marines-fighting-aliens movie was still the kind of thing that we’d seen a million times. Or so we thought. Professional provocateur Paul Verhoeven clearly had little interest in something so straight-down-the-middle, opting for a film that satirizes the book it’s based on rather than adapts it.
It’s on the lighter side, as werewolf-themed horror movies go, and that’s to its credit. It’s a rather charming (but often grisly) mystery with impressive twists, turns, and misdirects.
Kaboom probably isn’t New Queer Cinema titan Gregg Araki’s best, but it’s certainly his most fun, colorful, and fast-paced. While having a fair bit of sex, a bunch of college students face the potential end of the world.
This ultra-low-budget indie preceded and inspired Night of the Living Dead, and its thoroughly unique style and tone still impresses today. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) emerges from a car accident and stumbles into a creepy, entirely mysterious abandoned carnival, but you could probably figure out that from the title. Anything more is a spoiler.
Where to stream: Max, AMC+, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Shudder, Freevee, Amazon Prime
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who later went on to direct Everything Everywhere All at Once, made Swiss Arm Man waaay back in 2016, cementing their reputation as masters of emotionally engaging weirdness...and, fortunately, didn’t doom their careers. If it weren’t already clear, this is also the movie in which Daniel Radcliffe proved that he was well and truly ready to step out of Harry Potter’s long shadow.
One of those nearly, but in this case unfairly, forgotten Best Picture Oscar winners, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s very dark comedy is surprising both in its directorial style (the closest thing to a gimmick here), and in the ways that the jokes keep piling up. Iñárritu is known for more overtly dramatic movies (The Revenant, 21 Grams, etc.), but here directs all of that energy at making Michael Keaton’s life a living hell. It features a great performance from Keaton, playing off his once-and-future Batman role.
Many supernatural thrillers aspire to deeper resonance, and very many of those deal with grief. Few do so as cannily as Nicholas Roeg’s classic, set in a beautiful, but somber, Venice and starring Julie Christie alongside Donald Sutherland doing the best work of his career.
Cristin Milioti, Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons star in this romantic comedy that takes a quick lurch into science fiction—a good case of a film with a plot twist that comes at the beginning, rather than the end, and that keeps surprising throughout.
Where to stream: Hulu
Annette (2021)
I love to imagine the faces of the non-art house cinema crowd after haplessly happening upon Annette while scrolling through Amazon Prime. “Oooh, Adam Driver! I love him!” they think, clicking play, wholly unprepared for what French director Leos Carax and extraterrestrial musicians Sparks hath wrought.
An example of a movie with a trailer that is effective for making it seem much less clever than it is, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar only looks like a Kristen Wiig SNL sketch stretched to its absolute limit. It’s actually way fucking weirder.
Don’t let anyone spoil the stupidity of Serenity for you.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee
Extra Ordinary (2019)
Extra Ordinary pays homage to those crappy horror films you used to rent from the video store based only on the freaky box art. Except it’s actually really, really good. It starts like a parody and gets weirder as it goes; the presence of Will Forte is both a red herring and its secret weapon.
A couple of foodies (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) secured a coveted reservation to an exclusive restaurant on a secluded island. They have a delicious meal, post glowing reviews on social media, and go home happy and full. JK.
A prequel to Ti West's X co-written by star Mia Goth. You'd think you'd know what to expect if you've seen the first installment, which naturally reveals how it all turns out. Not so much.
Psycho did its job much, much too well, and, as a result, the number of film fans left to be surprised by its central twist are few. Still, if you only know Psycho as a famous title, there are more to its surprises (and shifts in perspective) than showers. Much copied, but never bested for shocking its audience: This is, quite simply, how it’s done. But, given that you've probably seen this one, check out the surprisingly effective Psycho II, which does nearly as good a job at keeping its audience guessing.
The PlayStation VR2 was expensive when it launched in early 2023—and today, it is still expensive. But you can save $100 from its $549.99 listing price from Amazon, Walmart, or Best Buy, bringing the current $449 price down to the lowest it has been since its release. The deal comes during Sony's Days of Play sale, where you can also find the PlayStation 5 widely available for $449.99, among other PlayStation deals.
The PlayStation VR2 is exactly what it sounds like: a VR headset for your PS5. It is the second version of the PlayStation VR with big upgrades that justify the $150 price increase, including an improved 2,000 by 2,040 resolution HDR OLED screen, a 110° field of view (that's 10° more than the VR1), pass-through view technology so you can see your play area (and not break your TV), and much-improved PSVR 2 Sense controllers with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers that will make your games feel more immersive (the headset also vibrates). The setup is also much easier, with just a USBC cable needed to be plugged into the console. IGN gave the headset an "amazing" 9 out of 10 score on their review.
It's not perfect, though. One of the biggest disappointments is that there is no backward compatibility with the original PlayStation VR, meaning you'll have to buy the same games again to play them on the PlayStation VR2.
Sony has been slowly releasing more games to be compatible with the VR2 headset. Right now, there is a good selection of games available, with more on the way.
The average price for a new car is close to $50,000 these days, which is a lot of money, and not always a good financial decision (not to mention the fact that the purchase price is only part of the cost). Even worse than the price, in many ways, is the process—anyone who has ever purchased a new car knows how long and excruciating it can be, involving several hours (or days) of your life as you engage in Jedi Mind Trick battles with a salesperson and then sign dozens of documents when you’re mentally and emotionally exhausted.
One reason the process sucks so much: Car dealerships are notorious for using tricky, sneaky tactics to get you to pay more than you need to. But you can turn the tables on them a little, because once you’ve struck a deal, in principle you have more leverage—the salesperson can smell that sale, and if you walk away, their time is as wasted as yours. This is the moment to ask for all the little things that won’t cost the dealer much, but can add up to a nice package of savings and perks for you, making this purchase a little less painful.
A full tank of gas
You might assume that the least you can expect from a car dealership is that your new car will arrive with a full tank of gas. And that is usually the case, but sometimes things go wrong—a salesperson forgets to gas up after a few test drives, or it’s simply overlooked. Considering that a full tank of gas can run as much as $100 depending on the vehicle you’re purchasing, it’s worth insisting that the contract stipulate the car will be delivered with a full tank, or that you’ll get a fuel voucher to fill it up. And while you’re at it, specify premium fuel, too.
Warranties and service plans
Dealers often toss extended warranties (that cover some repairs after the manufacturer’s warranty expires) and regular maintenance like tune-ups and oil changes into your contract and assume you’ll pay for them even though it increases your costs. But they’re not always worth it; an extended warranty only makes sense if you intend to own that car for well past the included warranty’s expiration, and even then you need to look closely at what’s covered. And most dealers will offer some kind of service and maintenance plan included with the purchase.
If you’re going to skip the extended warranty, you should ask to have it added to the contract as a freebie—all they can do is say no. Similarly, if there’s a charge for a service plan, try to have that added as well—even limited service options can save you some money down the road.
Coatings
When buying a new car, salespeople will often push various coatings—paint protection, anti-rust, anti-stain fabric applications—that they insist are necessary to keep your car from literally dissolving under the elements within days, if not hours. For the most part these coatings aren’t worth the money—cars are pretty durable right out of the factory, and while these coatings do offer some protection from normal wear and tear, the markups on them are usually breathtaking.
So, don’t buy these add-ons—but do ask that they be included in the contract as an included part of the purchase. Dealerships don’t pay much for these services (which is why they love selling them to you—that profit margin is sweet), so they can be persuaded to just throw them in if you ask nicely—and firmly—enough.
Extra keys or fobs
While most new cars these days use keyless (or even fully digital) entry and ignition, some basic models still come with mechanical keys—and if you need a fob to access the car it’s really just a key with extra steps. In either case, having a spare you can keep someplace safe is a great idea. Yet many dealers act like giving you a second key or fob requires immense effort and expense on their part. Before you sign that contract, ask them to write in a second key or fob so you don’t have to worry about losing yours.
VIN etching
VIN etching is a chemical process that burns your car’s vehicle identification number (VIN) onto the glass. It’s useful because it makes it much more difficult to sell a stolen car, which is why some insurers offer discounts on policies if your car has it. You can do VIN etching yourself cheaply, so it might not be worth the several hundred bucks your dealer will charge for the service—unless you convince them to write it into your contract for free.
Floor mats
If your new car doesn’t come with floor mats as a standard feature—and some don’t—you should definitely not buy them from the dealer. You can get them for a lot less money just about anywhere else, or spring for some laser-measured custom mats that will fit like gloves. But your dealer has floor mats they could give you—so write it into the contract and see if they’ll go for it, because free floor mats are always going to be better than floor mats you have to pay for.
It’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen the entry of truly smart ceiling fans that allow you to do more than simply turn the device on and off, but affect every single aspect of the fan and light. While these smart ceiling fans have been expensive until now, I was excited to try the Dreo 44'' Smart Ceiling Fan (originally $149.99, but on sale at Amazon at the time of this writing), which was reasonably priced and from a company I think is doing interesting things with cooling and fans.
Simple design with easy installation
The Dreo comes in two sizes: the 44-inch, four-blade version I was testing and a larger 52-inch version with five blades ($159.99, already sold out). Since my office ceiling fan desperately needed an update, it was the perfect time to test the Dreo. Simple in design, the fan features clean lines and smooth surfaces, and the light is one large low-profile LED. This fan would fit into virtually any decor, from modern to classic, without standing out. The only assembly required is choosing which side of the blades you’d prefer to face the room—one side will have a wood grain, and the other side will have a different color, depending on which size you buy.
Once attached, it’s time for installation. If you’re replacing a fan, you’ll simply need someone to assist in holding the fan while you wire it to the junction box that is already in your ceiling; then you bolt the fan body on and begin attach pieces in layers, starting with the cover for the junction box, the light base and, finally, the light cover. From there, you install the Dreo app and pair the fan. There is also an optional light switch and remote to be installed.
I’m already a fan of the Dreo app: It’s well-designed to have just enough functionality with a clean, clear design. From the app, you can use a slider to choose the speed of the fan; there are six speeds (the larger model has twelve), but the slider makes it feel like it has infinite speeds because you can be granular in choosing what feels right. To my delight, the ceiling fan shared the same feature as their standing fans where you can choose “normal” or “natural” mode. Just as it did on the ground in the standing fans, the “natural” setting produces what feels like more of a breeze, not by simply slowing the fan down but by pulsing through various speeds to simulate wind. It’s a charming feature I use all the time. A neat trick is that you can change the direction of the ceiling fan at the click of a button in the app, so the fan could be used in winter, too (when you want to more evenly distribute warm air around the room instead of sending cool air down). Most fans have this ability, but it's typically a manual toggle on the fan itself, and folks often don't take the extra step to reverse the fan and lose out on a nice way to move warm air through the room in the colder months.
While the light is plain in design, it does a good job of lighting the room. I immediately saw a difference in how bright the room felt from the old ceiling fan, which had four independent lightbulbs. The 2400 Lumen LED temperature can be adjusted from warm to cool (2700K-6500K), and the brightness can be dimmed using a slider. Once you adjust it, the light does not jump to the color or temperature you selected, but rather morphs gently into it. Though Dreo integrated seamlessly into Google Home and Alexa, including the associated assistants, it does not currently work with Apple HomeKit or IFTTT, and there’s no Matter or Threads integration.
You can also set up schedules for the fan and light, independently or together, or set the fan to “sleep” mode which will gradually slow down the fan overnight or even turn it off, if you use the timer.
Incredibly quiet
The most notable aspect of the Dreo ceiling fan is the volume: It is so quiet that you will forget it’s on. It was quiet enough that I asked Dreo how they were silencing the blades, and their support channel attributed it to a brushless DC motor and correct installation (when a fan is off balance, the rocking can make noise). Despite the missing sound, the fan works as you'd expect in moving air around the room. The smaller version promises 3170 cubic feet per minute (CFM) versus 5673 CFM in the larger unit. This is average for the size of fan, but when using the "natural" settings, and in absence of the typical white noise of a fan in the background, it just feels like you left a window open on a breezy day.
It’s hard to take a passionate stand for a ceiling fan—they are unsexy, as far as appliances go. However, the Dreo is a really good pairing of technology and usability. For about $150, you get an easy-to-install fan (less than half the cost of competitors) that is simple to use but also feels different than other ceiling fans. It’s quieter, brighter, and cools without feeling like you're in a wind tunnel. While I might enjoy more high-end design, on the functionality, the Dreo Smart Ceiling Fan can’t be beat.
Traveling with medications is easy enough: Whether pills or liquids, keep them in their original pharmacy containers, or pop over-the-counter meds into a pill organizer. But what about supplements? How do you carry those mini scoops of creatine or several shakes’ worth of protein powder without looking like you’re trying to smuggle something illegal?
You have the TSA’s blessing
We’ll get to specific tips in a minute, but first, some peace of mind: Airport security is 100% fine with you bringing your protein powder along with you. There are no special requirements for how it must be labeled or packaged, either. That said, there are things to keep in mind if you want to avoid delays at the scanners.
The things to know about carrying protein powder, creatine, or other “protein and energy powders,” as the agency groups, them are as follows:
If you have more than 12 ounces of the stuff in your carry-on (like an entire tub of protein powder), place it in a separate bin when you go through security.
They may not care at all; anecdotally, I and many people I know have traveled with protein powders without a TSA agent testing them, or even questioning them at all.
But if they notice your supplements and get curious, they may need to open the container and test what’s inside. (The Instagram post shows an agent doing this.) The testing is quick and you’ll be on your way.
If you don’t want to deal with those possibilities, it’s entirely reasonable to simply leave the stuff at home. On a short trip, you’ll be fine without your creatine or protein for a few days. But if you’ll be at your destination for a few weeks, you might as well buy a fresh supply while you’re there.
Determined to bring your whey or collagen with you? Here are some handy ways to do that.
Snack-sized baggies are great for single servings of whey or collagen powder. I write “protein powder” on the outside, and stuff the baggies inside my shaker cup. I like these 3"x6.5" bags, which have the seal on the short side. They’re a lot easier than standard sandwich baggies to pour into a cup without spilling.
Some supplements come in doses too small for the baggies to be convenient. For example, I have a powdered supplement that requires about a teaspoonful per serving. For those, these screw-top tins are perfect. I put one serving in each tin, and pack the tins with my toiletries.
For anything that comes in gummy or pill form, like vitamins, I like to use mint tins. Altoids tins (or a similarly sized plain tin, like these) are perfect. Just wrap a rubber band around them so that they can’t pop open en route. My favorite tins for this purpose are actually the ones from Trader Joe’s green tea mints, because the tins are small and have a little window so you can see what’s inside.
New features are the best part of any software update, but surprise new features are even better. Google just announced a new feature drop today, complete with eight new features to try on your Android device. Surprisingly, these features don't have too much to do with AI, Google's big focus right now. Seeing as its AI Overviews project is going quite poorly, it's almost refreshing to see a handful of traditionally useful features coming to Android.
You can now edit your sent messages
Google is finally rolling out the ability to edit your RCS messages after you've sent them. You have 15 minutes after sending a message to make any changes. To find the option, long-press on the message. Google didn't clarify whether there was a limit to the number of times you could change a message before that 15 minute timer expired, but the change puts the company in line with other messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp.
New Emoji Kitchen combinations
Emoji Kitchen is a feature that lets you combine compatible emojis together to create something brand new. (For example, a winking emoji and a ghost emoji become a winking ghost.) Google is now releasing new combinations for the feature, but they haven't listed all possible combos just yet. In the press release, they highlight only one combination, headphones and disco ball, as a way to "get ready for festival season." Presumably, there are more to discover, however.
Switch between devices during a Google Meet call
Going forward, you'll be able to jump between your connected devices while on a Google Meet call. To do so, tap the Cast button and swap from, say, your web browser to your Android phone or tablet. This is a great feature for those of us who need to leave our desktops during a meeting, but want to keep up with the call. It's also great for the opposite: If someone calls you on your phone while you're out and about, but you're still chatting when you get back home, you can switch to your computer and wrap up the call from your desk.
Join your hotspot without the password
Google is rolling out "instant hotspot," which will let you connect your Android tablet or Chromebook to your phone's hotspot without needing to punch in the password each time. It's a small but welcome change that should make connecting to your hotspot feel a bit more like connecting to a known wifi network. (Even if you still have to choose to connect to your hotspot each time.)
Google Home Favorites widget
The Google Home Favorites widget is now available on the home screen for those who sign up for Public Preview. With it, you can control smart devices from your phone's home screen without needing to open the Google Home app first. I can see this being particularly convenient for quick actions, like turning smart lights on and off, or checking in on stats for devices like smart thermostats.
Google Home Favorites on Wear OS
In addition, Google is making a Google Home Favorites tile and complication (essentially a feature on the watch face) for your Wear OS smartwatch. So, same deal as above, just on your watch, if you'd prefer to adjust your smart home devices from your wrist.
PayPal is now on Google Wallet on Wear OS
In an update to Google Wallet, PayPal is now an option when paying for something with your Wear OS smartwatch, at least if you're in the U.S. or Germany.
Digital car keys
Google is taking this moment to roll out digital car keys on Android, starting with "select MINI models," and extending to select Mercedes-Benz and Polestar models at a later date. When you have a car that supports the feature, you'll be able to lock, unlock, or start your car with your phone, as well as share digital car keys with trusted contacts. Digital car keys, like those on iOS, are a slow-growing technology for a myriad of reasons, including cybersecurity and a lack of standardization. The more companies like Google embrace the tech, the likelier it is auto manufacturers will want to add the feature to their cars.
If you're struggling to make your monthly mortgage payments due to financial hardship, a loan modification could provide much-needed relief. A mortgage loan modification is a permanent change to your loan terms that is agreed to by your lender in order to make the payments more affordable and help you avoid foreclosure.
What does mortgage loan modification look like?
Common ways a loan can be modified include:
Reducing the interest rate, even if only temporarily
Extending the loan term to spread costs over more years
Adding missed payments to the loan balance
Switching to a different loan program or type
The end goal of a modification is to get you into a more affordable payment based on your current financial situation. Lenders are often willing to modify loans for borrowers facing legitimate hardships, rather than go through an expensive foreclosure process.
What qualifies as a hardship?
To be eligible for a mortgage modification, you'll need to prove you are facing a real financial hardship that is impacting your ability to pay. Hardships that may qualify include:
Job loss or income reduction
Unmanageable increase in housing expenses
Excessive debt or monthly obligations
Divorce or death of a spouse
Serious illness or disability
Your lender will require documentation of your hardship circumstances as well as detailed information on your income, assets, expenses, and other debts. Having missed mortgage payments already often strengthens the case for modification.
How to apply for a loan modification
The first step is to contact your mortgage servicer (the company you make monthly payments to), and specifically inquire about their loan modification programs. Many participating in government-sponsored programs, which have specific eligibility criteria.
You'll need to fill out a modification application package with detailed documentation on your hardship, income, assets, and any other requested information. Be prepared to provide evidence with documents like tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, bills, and more.
Your servicer will run the numbers to determine the most affordable modified payment plan they are willing to offer based on your specific situation and loan characteristics. You may be required to do credit counseling or go through a trial payment period successfully before the modification is made permanent.
If approved, the new modified terms will be documented and made permanent. While your credit will take a hit, a loan modification is better than foreclosure or bankruptcy for your credit score in the long run.
Even if you're not yet behind on payments but see financial challenges ahead, it's better to work with your servicer proactively on a solution rather than get behind. Being transparent about your hardship and exploring modification options early can help you avoid further setbacks and keep you in your home long-term.
Google Calendar falls into that category of apps that you probably just load up and use without too much thought. It's designed to be clean, lightweight, and functional by default, and that's perfect when you need to quickly check up on your schedule.
However, you've got more options for changing the look of Google Calendar on the web than you might have realized. Dig a little deeper into the settings, and you'll find you're able to tweak what's on screen in a variety of ways, from the number of days you can see at once, to how recurring and past events are handled in the interface.
If Google Calendar is a key tool you rely on, it makes sense to get it set up in the way that will be most useful to you—providing less clutter, quicker access to the info you need, and less time wasted clicking through to additional screens. Here are all the different settings worth adjsuting.
Custom views
Whatever view you're currently using for Google Calendar on the web, you can change it by clicking on the drop-down menu in the top right corner, to the right of the gear button. It'll be labeled with the name of the current view, like Month or Week. The same drop-down menu features some basic view options, such as whether or not declined events and weekends are shown on screen.
To really take control over what you can see, you can create a custom view. Click the gear button (top right), then Settings and View options. In the Set custom view drop-down menu, you'll see you can choose everything from 2 days to 4 weeks as the time period displayed when you load up Google Calendar in your web browser.
Get Google Calendar to show a specific number of days on screen.Credit: Lifehacker
The setting is saved automatically, and will appear as the last option in the drop-down menu on the main Google Calendar screen (with the Month and Week options in it). Unfortunately, the same custom view option doesn't sync to the mobile Google Calendar apps—you have to make do with the default ones
Back on the View options page, there's another drop-down menu that lets you control what day the week should start on—Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. This changes the layout of any view where you're looking at more than seven days together at once. Last but not least, there's a keyboard shortcut you can make use of in the Google Calendar web app to quickly jump to your custom view: Just tap the X key.
Other view options
Click the gear icon (top right), choose Settings and View options, and you'll see there are several other ways to configure the look of Google Calendar, besides creating your own custom view. Use Reduce the brightness of past events to have older calendar entries look more faded on screen, for example—a handy way of helping you see where you're up to in your current schedule.
There are check boxes for showing or hiding weekends, showing or hiding events you've declined invitations to, and showing or hiding completed tasks. Getting some of these details off screen can reduce the clutter in Google Calendar, making your timetable easier on the eye. Number labels for the weeks can be shown or hidden too.
You can change the density of the layout and the color choices too.Credit: Lifehacker
Open up the Time zone tab on the Settings page, and you're able to get a secondary time zone displayed on the day and week views—this makes it easier to see how events are scheduled across different parts of the world. You can also enable several time zone clocks in the side panel on the left, via the World clock tab: You can see at a glance what time it is in a city (and what the weather's currently doing, too).
Then you've got the settings you can edit on the actual Google Calendar view itself. Click the three horizontal lines (top left) to show or hide the left-hand side panel, and in that panel use the check boxes to show and hide individual calendars—a quick way of focusing on what you really need to see. You can also click the gear icon (top right) then Density and color to tweak the text size and label colors used.
OpenAI continues to expand the options available to free ChatGPT users. The company started by making its newest model, GPT-4o, generally free to all users—though there are limitations unless you pay—and now it has expanded the accessibility of major 4o features by removing the paywalls on file uploads, vision (which can use your camera for input), and GPTs (or custom chatbots). Browse, data analysis, and memory, also formerly paywalled features, were already available to free users in a similarly limited capacity.
OpenAI has been clear about its plans to expand the offerings that its free users can take advantage of since it first revealed GPT-4o a few weeks back, and it has made good on those promises so far. With these changes, it makes paying for ChatGPT Plus even less important for many, which is surprisingly a good thing for OpenAI. More users means more usage testing—something that will only help improve the models running ChatGPT.
There will, of course, still be usage limits on the free version of ChatGPT. Once you reach those limits, you’ll be kicked back to GPT 3.5, as OpenAI hasn’t made GPT 4 or GPT 4 Turbo accessible in the free tier. Despite that, some paid users are not exactly happy with the change, with many wondering what the point of ChatGPT Plus is supposed to be now.
ChatGPT Plus subscribers still get access to the ability to make their own GPTs, and based on everything we know so far, Plus users are the only ones who will get 4o's upcoming voice-activated mode, though that could certainly change in the future.
Giving more people access to ChatGPT’s best features brings the chatbot in line with one of its biggest competitors, Claude, which allows free users access to the latest version of its AI model (albeit it through a less powerful version of that model).
Modern Macs look and feel great, but sometimes I really miss the look and feel of retro Macs. Skeuomorphism, where digital objects are designed to mimic their real-world counterparts, is dead, but quite often I feel like going back to that era of Mac software. If you're feeling as nostalgic as I am, this guide will walk you through the steps to create the perfect retro look for your Mac.
Make Music look like QuickTime Player
Credit: QuickTune
The Mac's Music app is the go-to for anyone who uses Apple Music. To use a retro controller for this app, check out QuickTune, which recreates the look of QuickTime 7 from Mac OS X Tiger and allows you to control playback for Apple Music. Standout design elements include glass buttons for window controls, a brushed metal theme, and dedicated playback control buttons.
For those who use command line tools, the modern macOS Terminal app can feel a bit too polished. If you feel like going back to the good old days of using the command line on a CRT monitor, consider using Cool Retro Term. My colleague Justin Pot has written a great piece that walks you through the ins and outs of that app.
Bring back iTunes and iPhoto
Credit: Pranay Parab
iTunes and iPhoto were era-defining apps for the Mac. Everyone knows about the former, which was the default music player, a digital storefront for buying music, and the app you used to manage your iPhone. iPhoto was less popular, but used to be the photo management app before Photos came around.
To complete a retro look for your Mac, you're going to need a pack of retro icons. Designer Ben Vessey has you covered here, with 205 old school icons that complete your modern Mac's transformation into a retro computer. This icon pack costs £7.99 (roughly $10) and includes icons for Apple's apps plus lots of third party apps including the Adobe suite, 1Password, Spotify, and more. It also has icons for system folders and commonly used file extensions. This pack includes a complimentary retro wallpaper, too.
You'll also need to buy the IconChamp app ($9) to replace icons on your Mac, and even after that, a couple of system apps including Trash and Calendar cannot be changed due to macOS restrictions.
Get a retro Mac wallpaper
Credit: freddiemt/YouTube
The final step of your retro transformation involves changing your Mac's wallpaper. YouTuber freddiemt has uploaded all of the default wallpapers that shipped with each version of the Mac's operating system to this Google Photos album. You can also quickly search online for retro Mac wallpapers to craft the perfect retro look for your computer.
I used to think conspiracy theories were fun. It was interesting/funny that there were people out there who believed we faked the moon landing, or that Elvis Presley didn't actually die in 1977 (instead, he put on a mask and changed his name to "Orion," and kept on singing.) But those kinds of "harmless crank" conspiracy theories have always been rare. They usually eclipsed in popularity by hateful (but politically useful) conspiracy theories that boil down to "it was the Jews' fault."
There are still some "harmless" conspiracy theories out there, though, that capture the old "wait, people believe that?" energy. Below are my favorites, as well as a couple of conspiracy theories that seem harmless on the surface, but are stealthily hiding some terrible beliefs.
The year is actually 1727
According to the “phantom time hypothesis," It is not 2024. It is 1727. The years 614 to 911 never happened. They were simply added to the calendar to push the date forward artificially. The theory comes from German author Heribert Illig who detailed the theory in a 1996 (sorry, I mean 1699) book. Illig lays the blame for the missing time on Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II, who conspired to change the dates so Otto could be Emperor in the year 1000, to legitimize his reign. Radiocarbon dating, the recorded appearance of eclipses and comets, histories written in China, and a ton of other evidence refute this theory, but ultimately, I'm just happy the Jews aren't being blamed for stealing all those years.
The Moon isn't real
This conspiracy theory comes from the world of Flat Earthers, and it's a fringe belief even there, but the theory holds that the moon is not physically present. What you see in the sky at night is a projection put there by someone, presumably to make us think the world is round. In a weird way, it makes sense. If the earth really were a flat plane, the moon's movement across the sky wouldn't make sense—unless it's not really there. Since we can see the moon, it must be a projection. There can be no other explanation.
It's a good idea to "sun your butthole"
A fringe belief in the "wellness community," practitioners of "perineum sunning" or "butthole sunning" believe that briefly exposing the area between the genitals and anus to sunlight gives you energy, improves your circulation, regulates hormones, and has a host of other health benefits. There's no way to absolutely prove that this isn't so, but there's no evidence that it is so either. Doctors point out that the taint is sensitive to sunlight, so you could get sunburned, and sunning where the sun (traditionally) does not shine puts you at greater risk of developing skin cancer, but butthole sunners generally recommend very brief exposure, and suggest using sunblock. So you should probably do this.
You don't need food and water to live
Breatharians believe that we don't need food to live, and some believe we don't need water either. In the West, the belief dates back to a 1670 Rosicrucian text describing a physician who lived "several years by taking only one-half scrupule of Solar Quintessence." Complete fasting is described in older Hindu texts as well, and often attributed to the particularly enlightened or wise. Periodically, people still claim that they don't eat or drink for months or years at a time to this day (and scientists are baffled). These people are all caught sneaking food eventually (like the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America who was spotted outside a 7-11 eating a hot dog, a Slurpee and a box of Twinkies) or no one has caught them yet.
Death is not inevitable
Immoralists believe that life can be extended indefinitely. There is obviously a lot of scientific effort being put into extending human life, but, as yet, everyone is going to die. Even you. Like the breatharians, various people have publicly claimed to be immortal throughout history, but as far as we know, all of them died eventually (and their deaths must have been particularly embarrassing.)
Pinecones are mystical symbols
There are a lot of people out there who think the appearance of pinecones in the art of various ancient civilizations are symbols of human enlightenment and the pineal gland, which is said to be the source of mystical knowledge and visions. What the YouTube videos and websites that confidently spread these theories don't seem to grasp is that the pineal gland was named after the pinecone because the gland has the same shape. There's also no reason to think that representations of pinecones symbolized the same thing to ancient Assyrians as it did to ancient Greeks. We don't know what they mean. A more reasonable theory is that pinecones are frequently represented in ancient art because their repeating patterns are visually interesting and fun to sculpt.
Two stealthily harmful conspiracy theories
These two conspiracy theories seem like "wacky, fun" conspiracy theories, but once you scratch the surface, you realize they're actually based on poisonous ideas.
Helen Keller was a fraud
This conspiracy theory claims that Helen Keller didn't actually do all the things people give her credit for, particularly writing books, or that she wasn't actually deaf and blind. "Helen Keller is a fraud" has become a popular meme on TikTok over the last few years, but the accusation actually dates back to 1892. While I think the TikTokers are mainly having a little joke, this isn't as "harmless" a theory as it might seem, as its basis is the belief that people with disabilities aren't capable enough for some intellectual tasks.
On the other hand (and giving this theory way more credit than it probably deserves) in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a fairly widely accepted belief that "facilitated communication" could allow non-verbal people (mainly people with severe autism) to communicate. With the help of a facilitator helping them point to letters or words, some previously non-verbal people wrote books and graduated college. But as soon as real testing was applied, the communication was shown to be the product of the facilitator alone. So this could have happened with Keller; there's no reason to think it did, but it's at least possible. (Unlike the crazy theory below.)
The White House was built thousands of years ago, by giants
When I first heard of the "Tartarian Empire" I thought I'd found a rich and fascinating conspiracy theory that wouldn't make me think "gross." I was wrong.
The Tartarians, according to conspiracy theorists, were/are an ancient but advanced civilization, sometimes posited to be giants, who were responsible for thousands of well known buildings all over the world, including Notre Dame de Paris, The Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower, the White House, and pretty much any opulent pre-modernist structure you've ever seen. These edifices were built thousands of years ago, and they aren't just buildings; they hold the key to Tartarian free energy, and if you study them hard enough (and your hat is on too tight) you can find hidden clues in the architectural details. The Tartarians were buried in some kind of "mud flood" that, depending on who you ask, happened as recently as 100 years ago (when my grandmother was alive!). Much of recent history, including World Wars I and II, were attempts to erased evidence of Tartarians so that the secret of their free energy can be kept from us.
It may seems like a wacky, harmless nutjob theory, but the Tartarians seem awfully similar to the Aryan race that the Nazis invented. Plus, the Tartarian theory is catching on, and its popularity is about to turn it from something stupid into something ugly.
Most Tartarian believers seem like well-meaning dopes who don't understand architecture or history, but their theory is so outlandish that it doesn't yet have comprehensive historical narrative to bind it together. It's a pastiche of different dumb, often conflicting ideas, but as it gains cred among the gullible, bad actors are stepping in to shape the narrative. People like white nationalist holocaust denier Stew Peters are going hard at Tartarian theories, so it's only a matter of time before the age old conspiracy theory pattern repeats, and someone answers the question of "What happened to the Tartarians?" with "it was the Jews' fault."
Like bags, shoes are tricky to store. By their nature, they come in sets of two, so you have to figure out where you have space for both. Most are pretty rigid, too, and you don't want to squish them. Personally, my ultimate goal in life is to have a big walk-in closet where I can display all my shoes, but in the meantime, I spend a lot of time (and a little money) finding other ways to store my footwear in my small apartment.
Shoe storage ideas
I am a shoe fiend. I'm hardcore. Even though I try my best to adopt a "one in, one out" mentality, I'm much more likely to bring a new pair of shoes home and not get rid of an old one. I have shoes stored in my front closet, boots by my front door, hanging storage on the back of my front door and bathroom door, and even more shoes in a fancy rack in my living room. I don't say this to brag, nor do I say it as a cry for help; I'm simply letting you know I know what I'm talking about here. Learn from my storage triumphs and mistakes.
My system is this: Any shoes that have a high resale value and I think I'll list for sale in the future get stored in their original boxes, which are stacked next to my clothing rack. (That's not space-saving, but it's the truth.) Nice shoes that don't have their original box are stored on this shoe tree, which is a major space saver in my closet—it holds the pairs vertically and rotates 360 degrees so I can easily access shoes in the back without disrupting the rest of the stuff in the closet or making a mess digging around in there.
That is the exact one I have and it has held up well for over six years. It's indispensable to me because of how much space it saves and how well it holds the shoes, maintaining their shape by propping them up from the inside.
For everyday wear or less valuable shoes, I rely on over-the-door racks, but as I'll explain in the next section, I do not use the rigid ones made of metal rods. Instead, I use the fabric kind that feature pockets. These take up less space when the doors they're on are closed and are easy to maintain. I have ones like this:
To store boots, you need to keep the structure and shape at top of mind. The goal should be not allowing the tops to fall over or crease, so even if you're just storing them on the floor of the closet or a shelf, make sure they're always stuffed with newspaper or even out-of-season clothes, for a two-for-one storage solution. (You can also try hanging them.) You only need two things: A hanging chain designed for holding clothing hangers ($9.99 for seven) and a set of clips on hooks ($9.99 for 50). Thread the hooks of the clips through the chain, then use the clips themselves to hold the boot pairs together from the top. Not only will this maintain the boots' shape, but it will save major floor and shelf space, too.
Finally, consider some multifunction storage furniture, as long as you have the space. Try an entryway bench with shelving underneath to store everyday shoes and rain boots.
In my years of being a true shoe hound, I've tried many more storage methods than the ones listed above. I don't recommend acrylic storage boxes, for instance, if your goal is to save space; they actually take up way too much. The most ineffective tool, in my opinion, is one that I see being promoted pretty often online: The rigid over-the-door rack made of metal rods. Simply put, I hate these. First, to make them truly stable, you need to find a way to attach the free-hanging bottom to your door, which could involve screwing it in. Even if you do put holes in your door, which I especially don't advise if you rent your home, that won't keep the shoes in place when you open and close it. I had one of these on my front door for a few years and any time I opened or shut it with even a little vigor, all my shoes popped out onto the floor. These things use plain, horizontal rods to hold the shoes in place; there's nothing else there to help the footwear stay in the rack. Avoid these and use the kind of over-the-door holders that have pockets. But if you must, here's one similar to the one I had ($41.15).
There is an exception to this rule, though. You can mount one of these to the interior side of your closet, filling up space that otherwise goes unused. Since it will remain static there—not ride back and forth on an ever-moving door—the shoes will be safer and you'll get some use out of those few inches of wasted space. Also, add a few motion-activated LED lights to your closet, so when you have to look deep in there (like you will if you mount the shoe rack), you can at least see what you're doing. I have these, which attach to adhesive magnets so they're easy to remove and recharge when necessary (two for $19.96).
There are a lot of productivity applications out there, and FocusedOS tries to combine several of them. The application, which is available for all Apple devices, can block distracting apps and websites, dim the entire screen except for the window you're currently looking at, and play ambient sounds. The idea is that you'll be able to turn all of these features on with the press of a button, work, then turn it all off again when you're done.
To get started, simply download the application and decide which features you want to enable. The first tab, "Behavior," lets you dim all windows except the currently active one—this is similar to the application HazeOver ($4.99). You can also limit the number of apps that can show up on the screen and add some custom text to the menu bar. Finally, there's a feature that can hide icons on the menu bar, which is similar to the application Bartender ($22). You can also hide wallpaper or even go so far as to disable the wifi entirely. Note that none of these features are offered on the iPhone or iPad version of the application (mostly because they wouldn't make sense there).
There are also tools for blocking distracting apps and websites. You can choose which apps to block or only allow specific applications to open. Websites are a little simpler: There are pre-built categories you can add, or you can add URLs yourself.
Credit: Justin Pot
Finally, if this isn't enough, you can trigger any Apple Shortcut when you turn the focus mode on or off. You could use this to turn off notifications, start a timer, or anything else you can imagine.
The free version only allows you to create one "environment," meaning you configure everything the way you like it and that's how the application works. The paid version, which costs $20 per year, allows you to make multiple environments, meaning you could configure things differently for different tasks. The paid version also allows you to sync your current environment between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, unlocks more ambient sounds, and allows you to run a shortcut when starting an environment.
I don't think this combination of tools is going to be right for everyone. If you're constantly toggling a collection of focus-boosting tools every time you need to focus, though, FocusedOS might be exactly what you need. Give the free version a try to find out.
I have great news, pasta fam: Contrary to what you may have been told, mac and cheese can be breakfast. Not even as a throw-caution-to-the-wind statement of “I do what I want,” but as a hearty start to your day, and a smart way to use up leftover pasta. I should also mention it takes mere minutes to make. Start your day like a responsible adult, with a heaping bowl of breakfast mac and cheese.
At first glance, the star of this dish seems to be loads of cheese to make a heavy sauce. You're not wrong—cheese is indeed a key player—but soft scrambled eggs are actually the unsung hero, making up a good portion of the sauce and bulking up the consistency. The eggs paired with the right combination of cheeses blend together into small curds that coat the pasta. When you scoop it up, the cheese pulls and melts, and it tastes like a creamy indulgence—just like mac and cheese should—with the added bonus of protein from the eggs.
To start, prepare your combination of cheeses. Just as a grilled cheese sandwich relies on its dairy, so does a good mac. Different cheeses act differently under heat—some are more stretchy, others are ideal for melting, and some don’t melt at all. I like a lot of melt and a little stretch, so I reached for a soft havarti, some cheddar, and a spoonful of cream cheese to create a saucy base.
Whisk two eggs in a bowl with a pinch of salt. In a frying pan, melt a teaspoon of butter over medium-low heat. Add in the cold leftover pasta and let it develop some crispy spots. If your pasta has congealed into an indestructible brick, add a teaspoon of water and cover the pan with a lid for a few minutes. The humidity will help loosen up the pasta.
I cut up a chicken sausage and added it to the pan at this stage. Once the eggs go in, the dish finishes up in a snap, so if you want to add any veggies, meats, or seasonings, add it now while the pasta heats up. Stir the mixture with a rubber spatula. When you see some crispy brown sections show up on the noodles, add the cheeses. Stir them in with the other ingredients, and then pour in the eggs.
Turn off the heat right after you add the eggs and stir to combine. Cover the pan with a lid and leave it on the warm burner for two or three minutes. This will continue to cook the eggs gently and melt the cheeses thoroughly. If you leave the heat on, the eggs will cook (and probably overcook) before the cheese warms through. It’ll still taste good, but you won’t get the same creamy texture.
Take the lid off and stir the mixture again. I topped it all off with chopped chives (because, vegetables), and heaped the golden mass into a bowl. This is a great breakfast to make if you have a container of leftover pasta, but you can also just boil up some fresh noods real quick if you have a hankering. Feel free to personalize the add-ins beyond sausage chunks. Add frozen peas, chopped peppers, or cooked bacon instead.
Breakfast Mac and Cheese Recipe
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 teaspoon butter
Pinch salt
1 cup of leftover, cooked pasta
1 sausage patty, chopped (or other add-ins)
1 ounce of havarti cheese, roughly chopped
¼ cup shredded cheddar
1 tablespoon cream cheese
Garnish with chopped chives
1. Whisk the eggs in a bowl and set aside. Heat a frying pan over medium-low and add the butter. Add the leftover pasta and chopped sausage (or whatever add-ins you’re using) with a pinch of salt, and stir with a rubber spatula.
2. Once the pasta begins to brown in areas, add in the chopped havarti, shredded cheddar, and cream cheese. Stir briefly before pouring in the whisked eggs. Turn off the heat and stir the mixture for a moment.
3. Cover the pan with a well-fitting lid and let it sit on the warm burner for 2-3 minutes. Uncover and stir the mac and cheese. The cheese should all have melted through and the eggs should be cooked and blending in with the cheese. If the mixture is more wet than you prefer, cover it again and you can even snap on the heat for another minute or so. Garnish with chopped chives and enjoy while warm.
Everyday laptops are everywhere, all at once. No, really. If you’re looking for a laptop that can tackle your everyday tasks—whether that’s work or personal business—then you have a lot of options to pick from. But not all of them are good or even really worth it, so it can be hard to find the best one for your needs. Enter the new Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, a 16-inch laptop designed to be your everyday device, whether you’re a student, businessperson, or just looking for a solid all-around machine to browse the web and take care of your daily projects.
I’ve been using the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED as my daily driver for the past two weeks, and like most of Asus’ newer laptops, I’ve been really impressed with what it can do. It’s sleek, weighs in at just over 3 pounds (roughly the same weight as my normal daily driver, a MacBook Air 15-inch), and it offers a ton of performance, not to mention that brilliant 3.2K, 120Hz OLED display, which really just makes things pop.
Specs and performance
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
There are a few different variations of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, including Intel models, but the version that Asus sent me included an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS chip (which includes Radeon 780M Graphics), 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. It’s a solid configuration that didn’t leave me wanting for more. the Ryzen 9 8945HS is a fantastic processor, especially for everyday tasks, and the integrated graphics are more than enough for basic work and personal usage, plus some light gaming on the side.
Anecdotally, performance as a whole was always snappy, and I never felt like the laptop was being bogged down, even when I had multiple Chrome tabs open, as well as the different Office applications needed to do my daily work. I even tried running a few games (Hades and other lightweight indies) on the system and found that they played fairly well, considering the lack of a discreet graphics card. Of course, if you really want to play games on your laptop, I recommend picking up a gaming laptop — perhaps the Asus Zephyrus G16, which I previously reviewed. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to get Red Dead Redemption 2 to run, and even then it frequently dipped below 30 fps.
I didn’t put the laptop through the normal slew of benchmarks that I’d use for a high-end gaming laptop, but I did try to bog it down with different apps like Photoshop, Premiere, and even After Effects running simultaneously. The Vivobook S16 OLED handled it all like a champ without any major slowdowns, and it was even able to export a 3-minute test video at 4K in just over an hour and twenty minutes. Depending on the video you’re exporting, of course, that rendering and exporting time may differ.
Here’s a look at the different ports the Vivobook S16 OLED offers:
1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C for display / power delivery
2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
1x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C for display / power delivery
1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS
1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
Micro SD card reader
The Vivobook S16 OLED is also one of the first Asus laptops to include the Copilot button, which you can mostly ignore if you don’t care about using Microsoft’s entry-level AI features. If you do use it, there aren’t any of the nifty AI additions that Microsoft showed off for its Copilot+ PCs, but the Vivobook S16 OLED doesn’t need AI to make it stand out from other competitors. It’s just a solid laptop through and through, but more importantly, it's sleek.
Looks and feel
It's so light you can easily hold it in one hand.Credit: Joshua Hawkins
Perhaps one of my favorite things about the Vivobook S16 OLED is the fact that Asus hasn’t gone out of its way to make this device stand out. It’s pretty simple as far as laptops go, with a slick all-metal body and a simple logo printed across the lid.
It’s a very understated design compared to the other Asus offerings I’ve checked out this year, and that really called to my love for minimalism and simplicity. That all-metal body also means an extremely lightweight and thin design, which feels great to carry around despite the laptop sporting a large, 16-inch display.
The trackpad and keyboard are solid, too, with the trackpad expanding up a good bit of the actual body of the laptop, giving you plenty of room to work. The keyboard and trackpad are both Ergosense, which means they’re designed to give you optimal ergonomics without sacrificing any of the benefits you’d get from a high-end typing and trackpad experience.
The backlit chiclet keyboard feels good to type on — almost as good as my MacBook Air's — and the addition of the numpad is handy, though it does feel a bit cramped. Using the laptop on your lap, a countertop, or anywhere you might need to take your work from is easy thanks to the lighter weight of the laptop (3.31 pounds), too.
Fitting so many keys onto the laptop without taking up an enormous amount of room is no easy feat, but Asus has put together a decent combination of keys to give you all the necessities.
Display and battery life
The OLED display shines in both bright and dark environments.Credit: Joshua Hawkins
If you’re working on a laptop, then you want to have plenty of room to do everything you need to do on it. The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED doesn’t want for screen space, as its large, 16-inch, 3.2K (3,200 x 2,000) Lumina OLED display provides a striking color balance with a beautifully large canvas that gives you plenty of room for juggling apps. The peak brightness of 600 nits is also enough for multiple types of work environments, and I never found myself worrying too much about glare.
The addition, the side-mounted HDMI connector and display capable USB-C ports mean you can also expand your display if needed, giving you even more room to be productive. I found that this display is easily one of the best I’ve seen on a laptop this year, and it made working and watching movies very enjoyable. The colors in movies like Dune: Part Two popped, from the bright sandy desert vistas to the darker cavern scenes. I also tried playing a few lower-end games on the machine, and it did a surprisingly good job of handling itself, so long as I was willing to go to a much lower resolution than the native 3,200 x 2,000.
With such a beautiful display attached and a powerful chip like the Ryzen 9 8945HS, you might not expect more than a few hours of battery life from the Vivobook S16 OLED. During my testing, I was often able to go the entire workday—and some into the evening—without having to plug in the laptop. That's roughly eight to nine hours, depending on the day. It also comes equipped with various Asus software to help manage the battery and keep it at peak health, so you won’t have to worry about overcharging it if you follow the instructions on the notifications that pop up.
The bottom line
The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED is a great all-around laptop for work, personal projects, and school. It’s lightweight design makes it a great option for people who travel a lot, or if you just have to commute to work every day and want an easy-to-carry laptop.
The powerful AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS and integrated graphics in the model I got were more than enough for anything you might throw at it during your normal day-to-day (but don’t expect it to hold up to high-end gaming). The configuration of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED I tested is available now on Asus' website for $999.
When my cheap Amazon spin bike broke, I wanted to upgrade to something better. But even though I was already following along with Peloton videos on the company's app, I thought getting an actual Peloton was out of reach. Yet as I shopped, I began to change my mind: Even a good off-brand spin bike will start in the high triple digits, and it turns out Pelotons can be rented, or even purchased used. Thus began my quest for a cheaper Peloton, and in the end, I bought a used model I’m very happy with.
Mine cost $950 through a Facebook Marketplace sale in 2022. If I had taken the time to shop around and negotiate more, I likely could have found one for less. (Used Pelotons are also a lot cheaper now than they were then.) But before I could find a Bike to buy, there were a lot of questions that needed answering. Let me take you on a tour through my shopping process.
The difference between the Peloton Bike and the Bike+
Before you start shopping, you’ll need to know if you want a Peloton Bike, or a Peloton Bike+. The Bike is what you probably think of as a normal Peloton; the Bike+ has some additional features and costs about $1,000 more (new). I knew at the start that I wanted a regular Bike, so that narrowed down my shopping.
The Bike+ has its touchscreen on a swivel, so you can do strength or yoga classes next to the bike, instead of having to stand behind it and crane your neck to see over the seat. That said, an All-Access Peloton membership also allows you to watch strength and yoga classes from your phone or another device, so this is a nice-to-have, but not a necessity.
The Bike+ can automatically adjust the resistance as you follow along with a class. With a regular Bike, you have to listen to the instructor tell you what resistance to use, and turn the knob yourself.
The Bike+ has a slightly larger touchscreen (24" versus 22") and a nicer sound system. It also has nicer components throughout, including a faster processor and more RAM.
Do you have to pay a subscription fee to use a Peloton?
Peloton’s Bikes are intended to be used with an All-Access subscription. It costs $44 per month and gives you access to spin classes of all types, scenic rides, and Lanebreak rides (Lanebreak is essentially a video game you play by riding the bike). As noted, the All-Access subscription also comes with the ability to take classes from the Peloton app using your phone or other devices.
If you don’t have a subscription, you can still use the Bike in “Just Ride” mode, which shows you a plain black screen and some basic metrics: your cadence, resistance, output, and time. So if you just want to get a workout in, but you don’t care about consuming Peloton-branded content, you can still do that without paying a monthly fee.
How much you'll pay for a used, new, or refurbished Peloton, or just renting
All of the prices I discuss in this section are current as of May 2024, and are subject to change.
Used Peloton Bikes vary wildly in price and quality. Some are gently used and come with accessories; others may be cheaper but have significant wear and tear. I’m currently seeing asking prices from $500 to $750 for the standard model Bike, and $1,000 to $1,600 for the Bike+ (subscription not included, of course).
New Peloton Bikes run $1,445 for just the Bike, or $1,650 for a “Starter” package that comes with shoes, hand weights, a water bottle, and a mat. (The Bike+ is $2,495, or $2,700 with the Starter package.) Both options include delivery and setup, and a 12-month warranty. They do not include the $44/month All-Access subscription that you’ll need to take the platform’s famous video classes.
Peloton Bike rentals run $89/month ($119/month for the Bike+), plus a one-time $150 delivery and setup fee. The rental includes a pair of cycling shoes and the subscription fee for video content. There is also a warranty for the life of the subscription period.
Peloton certified refurbished bikes are currently going for $995 for the Bike, and $1,595 for the Bike+. Both are a significant savings compared to brand-new. Otherwise, the terms are the same as new bikes: The warranty and delivery fee are included; your All-Access subscription is not.
As you’d expect, used Bikes are cheaper than refurbished, and refurbished is cheaper than new. Where do rentals fall? We need to crunch some more numbers to see.
Is renting Peloton a better deal than buying new or used?
I considered a rental before I started shopping for used Bikes. If you don’t know whether you want a Peloton at all, or if you’re planning on a move soon, the rental might be worth it. Peloton will send someone to come pick up the Bike, for free, if you decide you don’t want it anymore. Rentals may be new or refurbished—Peloton sends you whatever they have, although they promise it’ll be in good condition, even if it has a few dings or scratches. There are options to rent both the Bike and Bike+. Below, I’ll discuss pricing for the regular Bike.
What you need to know about renting a Peloton
You have the option to buy your rental at any time, and the price varies based on how long you’ve been renting. If you decide to buy the Bike the moment it arrives, it will cost you $1,295. At that point you’ll have already paid the $150 delivery fee and probably your first month’s $89 rental fee, meaning the Bike will effectively cost $1,534—similar to the full price of a brand-new Bike. (Remember that your rental Bike might be a new Bike, but it might also be a refurbished model, which sells for less.)
As time goes on, the deal stays about the same: After a year, the buyout price is just $895, but you’ll have already paid $1,218 in rental fees (including the delivery fee). That’s $2,113, but you’ve saved $44/month on the All-Access subscription all along. When you take that into account, you’ve paid the same amount, in total, as if the Bike had cost $1,585 in the first place.
That means buying a brand-new Bike at full price will run you just slightly more than renting and later buying out your rental. The calculus shifts in favor of buying new if you’re able to catch a sale on the Bike, or if you overpay for your rental because you didn’t pay attention to the buyout calendar—the buyout price is $895 anytime between 12 and 24 months into the rental, so it’s a much better deal to buy at 12 months than at 23.
If you aren’t sure whether you’ll want the Bike long term: Rent, and take advantage of the free pickup when you’re done with it. If you like it, you might as well buy it out at one of the price drops, which occur at three, six, 12, and 24 months.
If you know you’ll keep the Bike for years: Go with new, refurbished, or used, depending on your preferences.
Are used Peloton Bikes a good deal?
I ended up buying mine used, so I would say the definitely are. But it depends on a few factors.
The first thing to consider is resale price. When I was shopping for mine, $950 was an excellent deal compared to the new, rental, and refurbished prices. Since then, prices have dropped on the used market and Peloton is offering their refurbished models more cheaply than before. Sales have also been occurring more often.
For the moment, at least, prices on used Pelotons are still high enough that you'll be able to get a significant amount of your money back if you were to decide to sell your Bike or Bike+. That was a big part of my calculus: A used Peloton doesn’t depreciate instantly like a new car. That said, prices have been slowly falling. If I wanted to sell my $950 Bike now, I'd likely get $600 back at best.
Besides the price, though, you might want to consider two other factors that will affect how good a deal you’re getting if you buy used.
Used Bikes don’t come with a warranty
New and refurbished Pelotons come with a 12-month warranty that covers the touchscreen, parts (including pedals), and the labor to replace them. If something breaks, you just contact customer support and they’ll send somebody out to fix your Bike.
The warranty does not transfer to new owners. So even if the original owner has had the Bike for less than a year, you don’t get the benefits of the remaining time on the warranty. However, if the original owner purchased an extended protection plan—which can last up to four years in total—those are transferable. Only the original owner can buy this plan, and only within the first year they own the Bike; you can’t buy one yourself if you’re buying a used Bike. If you’re buying used and the owner is transferring a protection plan, make sure to get their order confirmation number, and don’t be surprised if the asking price is a bit higher than other used Bikes to account for the owner’s extra expense.
Without a warranty or protection plan, you’re on the hook for any repair costs, including labor. I had to replace the bearings on my Bike shortly after I got it, and I believe I paid Peloton around $45 to send me the part I needed. Fortunately, it was easy to install. On the other extreme, if something went wrong with the touchscreen, it would cost $375 to replace, labor not included.
Used Bikes may have wear and tear
A bike is a collection of moving parts, and if you love your Peloton, you’ll put a lot of miles on it. That means a lot of wear.
Peloton Bikes tend to be pretty sturdy, and indoor bikes don’t accumulate as much damage as something you’d ride outside. But it’s still worth considering when you might have to replace parts. If you’re buying a used bike, you’ll want to check these parts for wear:
The pedals should be replaced every year, at least according to Peloton, though most Peloton owners don’t seem to bother. (They certainly seem to last a lot longer than that, but the company is probably keeping in mind its 2020 recall in response to pedals that broke, injuring some riders.)
Speaking of recalls, the seat post on all Peloton bikes was recalled this year because it could break. If you’re buying used, make sure the owner has installed the new post.
The bearings in the center of the flywheel won’t last forever. You can expect them to endure roughly a year of regular use, although this will vary greatly. If a used Bike is a few years old and hasn’t had them replaced, that’s a repair that is probably due. When the bearings start to go, the Bike will still be functional, but it will make a rattling noise as you ride.
Cosmetic damage may also be an issue. There could be dents or scratches on a used bike, worn areas on the handlebars, and so on. Refurbished Bikes may have minor cosmetic issues; all bets are off when it comes to a used Bike.
How old a Bike is too old?
Peloton only has two models of bikes, which makes shopping easy. Both the original Bike and the Bike+ have a large touchscreen that plays videos of the workouts and shows you statistics about your ride.
The models haven’t changed much over the years, with one exception. The Generation 1 Bikes are no longer supported; the software in their touchscreens will no longer be updated. These Bikes have an orange power button at the top of the touchscreen, and were manufactured before September 2016. If you own a Bike with this touchscreen and are a paying Peloton member (even if you weren’t the original owner), Peloton will give you a $350 credit toward a new, modern touchscreen.
As long as the used Bike doesn’t have that older touchscreen, any model you buy used is going to be basically equivalent to what’s for sale now. Note that some of the Bikes in used listings may say "gen 1", but as long as their touchscreen has the gray button on the back instead of the orange button on top, they're fine.
Where to find used Peloton Bikes
There are plenty for sale on places like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, and there are also Peloton-related Facebook groups that allow members to post Bikes for sale. Check anywhere you would look for used items, like OfferUp and the local search options on Ebay.
As with any sale on these platforms, watch out for scams. When I was browsing listings to update this post, I found plenty of Bikes listed with a price of $129 and a description that glowingly praised the site where the seller had originally bought it. Yeah, that was just an ad for that site—which turned out not to sell Pelotons at all, but haha! Made you look! In any case, make sure you're dealing with a real person, and don’t pay anything until you’ve seen the Bike in person and are sure you want to buy it.
What to ask the seller of a used Bike
When you’re looking at a specific used Bike, Peloton's history tool (still in beta) may be able to tell you about the history of a Bike or Bike+ if you know the serial number. You'll have to ask the seller for the number, and then cross your fingers and hope that it's one of the Bikes included in the beta program. Besides that, here are some things to ask to make sure you’re getting a good deal.
Are you the original owner?
There’s nothing wrong with buying a Bike that has been through multiple owners, except that it’s harder to document where it actually came from. Peloton recommends you ask the owner to show you proof of the original purchase. They warn that rental Bikes aren’t supposed to be sold, and if you buy one, you won’t be able to activate a subscription on it.
This question can also kick off a conversation about why they are selling the bike, and how well it has worked for them over the years. Which brings us to...
How many rides has this Bike had?
There’s going to be a difference in wear-and-tear between a Bike that was ridden a few times, versus a Bike that gets hours of use every day. You don’t need to know the exact number, but it can be good to get a sense of how much use the bike has seen.
The bike doesn’t come with an odometer, but you can ask when it was purchased and how many rides the owner has done on it. (Their Peloton profile will tell them how many rides they’ve done, but remember that they may also have family members who ride as well.) Once Peloton's history tool is out of beta, it should be able to give you this information as well.
Have any recalled parts been replaced?
Peloton Bikes’ seat posts (but not the Bike+) were recalled in 2023. Although the rollout was slow, most people should have gotten their new ones by now. You can check whether the seat post is the newest type by looking at the bottom-most measuring line on the post.
While you’re at it, check whether the pedals have an orange Peloton logo. If so, they were part of the 2020 pedal recall and should have been replaced.
This is also a good time to ask about repairs, in general. Has anything broken, and if so, was it fixed and when? Does the Bike have any ongoing problems?
Can I ride it?
Hop on the bike (don’t worry about the shoes for now) and turn the pedals. Do they move smoothly, without clanking noises that might indicate bad bearings? Does the big red knob turn smoothly? Does the screen have any chips or cracks?
Peloton also recommends checking that the adjustment levers and screws move smoothly, and that there aren’t any signs of overtightening like cracks. Check that the power cable is in good shape, and that the bike is clean and appears well-cared for.
How to move a Peloton
If you decide to take the Bike home with you, proceed carefully. These suckers are heavy, weighing about 140 pounds. Most of that weight is in the flywheel at the front, so be aware of that when carrying it with a partner.
Peloton has a guide to moving Bikes here. Importantly, you’ll want to remove the touchscreen first. I wrapped mine in towels and put it in the front seat of my car; the rest of the Bike went in the back. They also recommend taking off the water bottle holders and the cage on the back that holds the dumbbells. Lower the handlebars and seat to their lowest position, and tighten all the adjustment levers so nothing moves in transit. I didn’t remove the pedals, but they say you should.
How to transfer a Peloton to a new owner
Peloton recommends doing a factory reset on a Bike before it changes hands. Go to Settings > System > Factory Reset. When you set your Bike up at home, follow the prompts on the screen to register the Bike and set up your new subscription.
If you already have a subscription to the Peloton app, make sure to cancel it; that doesn’t always happen automatically.
What else you'll need to buy to enjoy your Peloton
You’ll want cycling shoes. They don’t have to be Peloton brand (the standard Peloton shoes kind of suck, if we’re being honest), but they do need Delta LOOK cleats to fit the pedals. That said, you can replace the pedals with another type if you prefer. If you plan to ride a lot, padded cycling shorts are also a good idea.
Peloton’s cycling classes sometimes involve small handheld dumbbells; these should come with your bike. If you want to do the strength classes, though, you’ll want bigger dumbbells. Peloton makes its own branded dumbbells with square ends, but the workouts work just as well with any dumbbells you care to buy from the store.
You may want a mat to put under your Bike to protect your floor from dripping sweat. You’ll likely also want a towel, a water bottle, and maybe a heart rate chest strap to sync with the Bike (even my cheapo strap syncs just fine).
With big exclusives like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Helldivers 2 already out, it’s almost time to see what PlayStation has in store for the rest of the year. Sony has officially announced when it next State of Play livestream will take place, and it’s coming a lot sooner than you might expect.
Sony took to X (formerly Twitter) and the PlayStation Blog to share that the next State of Play will premiere tomorrow, Thursday, May 30. The event will kick off at 3 p.m. PT (6 p.m. ET / 11 p.m. BST). The show is expected to last more than 30 minutes, though Sony hasn't shared an exact event timeline. However, the PlayStation parent company said that it will showcase updates for 14 different PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2 titles, including PlayStation Studios games set for release this year.
You can tune into the latest State of Play on PlayStation’s YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok channels, respectively. It is unclear exactly what PlayStation will highlight with its time slot, though there have been rumors and leaks about a new Astro Bot game. It’s also possible we could learn more about the PlayStation 5 Pro, which has generated a ton of rumors these past few months.
Considering that PlayStation recently appointed two new CEOs, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, this State of Play will hopefully give us some idea of the company’s strategy for the rest of the year. In the comments section for the State of Play announcement, fans are expressing hopes for new information regarding Insomniac's Wolverine game as well as PS VR2 support for PC.
Make sure to tune into the event tomorrow, especially if you’re excited about anything that PlayStation has in the works. I’ll certainly be watching to see what Sony has in store for gamers in 2024.
A dog that likes to dig can pretty quickly destroy your yard. And though you can scold them when you catch them in the act, stopping the behavior entirely will likely require a bit more effort. With warmer weather on the way and yard improvement on the spring to-do list, here’s how to fix those holes (as well as a few ideas for stopping your dog from digging in the first place).
Why your dog might be digging in your yard
You can fill in the holes your dog has dug, but you'll be doing that endlessly if you don’t address the underlying reason your dog is digging holes in the first place. Dogs may dig up a yard for a number of reasons:
They’re bored and need entertainment or a job to do.
They were bred to dig.
They are searching for prey, like burrowing animals or pests.
They’re hot (or cold).
They’re trying to escape after or away from something.
How you stop the digging depends on the underlying cause, but in general, consider first what your dog might need—whether that's a toy to keep it entertained, or shade, or water. Frequent walks, minimizing unsupervised time and engaging your dog with tricks or commands can help, too. Punishing your dog generally doesn’t. And if you’re ferreting out pests, be sure to avoid toxic products that your dog could accidentally ingest.
An oft-repeated bit of lore suggests that filling holes with your dog's own poop will deter them from digging in the same spot again. It's worth a try—most dogs won’t go after their own poop, but some might. If it's a deeper hole, don't put their poop at the bottom. Add some soil first, then place the poop a few inches below the surface, and top off with more soil.
Finally, if the digging continues, you may be able to train your dog to dig in a designated area—say, a pit filled with soil or sand and your dog’s toys. Lead them to that area and reward them when they use their digging pit instead of digging in other parts of your yard.
How to repair holes your dog has dug in your yard
Filling in the holes your dog has dug doesn't sound complicated, but you shouldn’t just push the dug-out dirt back into the hole. (You probably wouldn’t be able to do this anyway, as dogs that dig typically make a huge mess by kicking dirt everywhere.) Instead, you’ll need to bring in topsoil and, if you have grass, add grass seed or a sod patch.
Follow these steps when repairing dog-dug holes.
If you're using grass seed
Fill the hole with topsoil, water it, and add just enough additional soil to bring it to the same level as the ground.
Add seed and water, following the instructions on the bag.
If you're using a sod patch
If you're using a sod patch, fill the hole with soil to just below ground level, leaving a gap equal to the thickness of your sod patch.
Roll out the sod over the hole, and cut the edges to fit.
Remove the sod and shovel out the hole as needed so the sod patch will sit flush with the surrounding ground.
Place the sod and water it daily until it takes root.
The PlayStation 5 Slim has been hard to come by since its release, spurring some shoppers to pay over-market prices from other sellers. But for now, there seems to be ample supply during PlayStation's ongoing Days of Play sale.
Currently, the PlayStation 5 Slim is on sale for $449 (originally $499.99) after a $50 discount from Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. The PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition is also available for $399 (originally $449.99).
As mentioned, consoles tend to sell out quickly, so keep an eye on stock if you plan to buy, and consider acting quickly. The PlayStation store is the only one offering the PlayStation 5 with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Bundlefor $449at the moment, with Best Buy's supply already running dry. If you're a PlayStation Plus member and you buy the console or a PS VR2 headset through Sony, Sony will include 12 months of Netflix Premium as long as you make the purchase between May 29 and June 12. The offer applies to new and existing Netflix subscribers.
If you already have the older PS5 and are wondering about upgrading to the slim version, keep in mind that it offers more than just a sleeker design (about 30% slimmer, according to IGN's review). The PS5 Slim also has 1TB of internal storage space, which results in an additional 181GB of usable space when compared to the original PS5. This addresses two of the biggest cons of the original PS5: the bulkiness and lack of storage space compared to the Xbox Series X.
The PS5 Slim can be oriented both horizontally and vertically, but if you choose the latter, you'll need a vertical stand, which costs $29.99.
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