Looking to settle in with a good movie? Me too. That's why I've pored over the release schedules of major streaming services to bring you the best original and new-to-streaming movies you can watch right now.

There's something for any taste this week. Netflix's Power is a hard-hitting documentary about the relationship between the people and the police. Disney's remastered version of 1970s documentary Let it Be details the making of the last creative gasp of The Beatles. And you could even watch a movie about a singing unicorn, if you're into that.

Power

The big-ticket Netflix originals this month may be comedy and historical costumes, but there's a serious side too, embodied by Power, a hard-hitting, critically acclaimed documentary that looks at our relationship with the cops and asks "Who is more powerful, the people or the police?" Directed by Academy Award nominee Yance Ford, Power examines the history of policing and asks tough questions about whether and how we're being oppressed by the boys and girls in blue.

Where to stream: Netflix

Let It Be (1970)

Let it Be was meant as "Beatles in the studio" TV documentary, but director Michael Lindsay-Hogg captured the biggest band ever just as they were about to break up instead. After a limited release in theaters, Let it Be was mothballed, and couldn't be seen legally for 50 years, so Disney's restored and remastered version is eagerly awaited by fans; even if you only kind of like The Beatles, it's worth a watch. Let it Be it clocks in at under 90 minutes, and, unlike Peter Jackson's exhaustive, eight-hour documentary Get Back, it focuses on the music instead of the internal friction that would soon break up the band, leaving "the band is going to break up soon after this recording session" as subtext.

Where to stream: Disney+

Madame Web

There's a Hollywood saying that goes "behind every bad movie is a good mortgage," and Madame Web is a perfect example. It definitely isn't the best movie you could watch this weekend but there's something fascinating about dissecting high-profile failures. Dakota Johnson plays Cassandra “Cassie” Webb AKA Spider-Woman, and she's a good actor. Madame Web is a co-production between Marvel and Sony, so it had real money behind it. Superhero origin stories are inherently interesting. So what went wrong? Watch it to find out, and console yourself that many people who worked on it bought houses.

Where to stream: Netflix

Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal

When hackers called "The Impact Team" took over find-an-affair website Ashley Madison in 2015, they told its owners "welcome to your worst fucking nightmare"—but the nightmare extended beyond the business owners. All of Ashley's Madison's users, from ordinary Joes to political figures and entertainment industry leaders, had their sordid details spilled to anyone who wanted to take a look. Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal tells the entire sleazy story, but doesn't shy away from the real-world emotional devastation the imbroglio wrought.

Where to stream: Netflix

59th Academy of Country Music Awards

All your favorite country stars will be on-hand to do-si-do at the 59th Academy of Country Music Awards. Billed as "Country Music’s Party of the Year," this year's event will be hosted by Reba McEntire, who is also slated to perform new music during the show. It's an interesting time in country music, as the often-staid genre confronts a new wave of performers. The "entertainer of the year" category, for instance, pits neo-traditionalists like Cody Johnson against new school iconoclasts like face-tattooed, hip-hop influenced artist Jelly Roll.

Where to stream: Prime

Thelma the Unicorn

This animated feature was directed by Jared Hess, whose first film, Napoleon Dynamite, is a quirky masterpiece, so Thelma the Unicorn has the potential to be more interesting than a typical computer-animated, streaming-only kid flick. Based on the best-selling books by Aaron Blabey and starring Brittany Howard in the title role, Thelma the Unicorn tells the story of a pony who masquerades as a unicorn to fulfill her dream of musical stardom. It features the voices of Jemaine Clement, Edi Patterson, Fred Armisen, Zach Galifianakis, Jon Heder, and Shondrella Avery, a more-than-solid crew.

Where to stream: Netflix

Last week's picks

The Iron Claw (2023)

Even though The Iron Claw was nearly universally lauded by critics, it wasn't nominated for a single Oscar. Rip-off! Maybe a movie about professional wrestling is too lowbrow for "The Academy," but their loss. Yes, The Iron Claw is about wrestling, but it's also about mourning, loss, and the resilience of family. Plus, The Iron Claw features fantastic performances from Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White (The Bear), and Harris Dickinson as the real-life Von Erich brothers, a wrestling dynasty beset by so much tragedy they come to believe they've been cursed. After watching this flick, it's hard to argue with them.

Where to stream: Max

Roast of Tom Brady

Most football fans are eager to see ex-Patriots quarterback Tom Brady get taken down a few pegs, and this roast brings in Jeff Ross, Kevin Hart, and a host of the most vicious comedians on Earth to hit Brady harder than a 260-pound linebacker. And they don't make helmets for your feelings. The Roast of Tom Brady was broadcast live and unedited, ensuring an anything-might-happen evening of insults and comedy.

Where to stream: Netflix

Fire in the Sky (1993)

I recently went on a bender of movies where people are abducted by aliens, and Fire in the Sky is the best of them. Despite the mixed reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, this movie makes the most clichéd version of an alien kidnapping story terrifying by keeping everything as grounded and realistic as as possible, until main character Travis Walton takes a traumatic UFO ride (with probing). Then everything goes batshit. Fire in the Sky leans into the inscrutable, impossible-to-understand nature of aliens in a way I found deeply unsettling. The fact that everything in the movie can be fact-checked against real life (except the UFO trip, of course) makes it extra creepy.

Where to stream: Paramount+

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Picnic at Hanging Rock's director Peter Weir went on to make The Truman Show, but I prefer this film's mysterious vibe and slow burn. Set in the early 1900s, the picnic of the title is a Valentine's day excursion to Australia's Mt. Macedon undertaken by a group of students from a nearby girl's boarding school. While on the rock, something happens—it's not possible to say what, exactly—and only some of the party returns. Beautifully photographed and shot through with mystery, Picnic at Hanging Rock is must-watch.

Where to stream: Criterion Channel

Living with Leopards

I'm a sucker for nature documentaries, so I'm psyched for this made-in-the-UK movie that details the lives of a pair of leopard cubs, from birth to adulthood. Living with Leopards promises an up-close-and personal look at a the coming-of-age of some of the most majestic creatures on earth.

Where to stream: Netflix

If you're looking for a new show to watch this week, streaming has you covered. Some of them are even worth your time! There's the "oh, my word!" scandal and romance of Bridgerton's third season, a brand new Doctor in a brand new season of Doctor Who, and the fascinating historical-thriller series The Big Cigar. Time to warm up the old couch and tell your eyes to get ready for a TV party.

Bridgerton, Season 3 — Part 1

Bridgerton, the romance series set among high-society ladies and gentlemen of Regency London, is going into its third season, and Netflix is dropping four episodes that tell the story of Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope's (Nicola Coughlan) friends-to-lovers romance. Series regulars Claudia Jessie (Eloise Bridgerton), Luke Thompson (Benedict Bridgerton), Golda Rosheuvel (Queen Charlotte), and Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury) are returning, and there will be new faces too, including Daniel Francis as dashing gentleman Marcus Anderson and James Phoon as the rakish Harry Dankwort.

Where to stream: Netflix

Doctor Who, Season 14

The first four episodes of season 14 of British science fiction institution Doctor Who are available to stream on Disney+. The series has been around since 1963(!), but this is the first season to appear on Disney+, so it's a good place to jump in. The first couple episodes see the 15th Doctor—played by Ncuti Gatwa, who digs into the role with lighthearted panache—and his new companion Ruby Road (Millie Gibson) battling goblins, then whipping through time and space, from the dinosaur era to Regency London, before landing on a space station run by babies 20,000 years in the future. Regular Doctor Who stuff, is what I'm saying.

Where to stream: Disney+

The Big Cigar

The early 1970s was a wild time in America, and The Big Cigar aims to bring it to life. Apple TV+'s new series tells the of-the-chain true story of Black Panthers founder Huey P. Newton's escape to Cuba in the early 1970s. Wanted by the FBI, Newton (André Holland) teams up with Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola), the producer of The Monkees and Easy Rider, and together they hatch an audacious plan to fake a movie as a smokescreen to smuggle Newton out of the country.

Where to stream: AppleTV+

Outer Range, Season 2

The set-up of Outer Range will seem familiar for fans of TV neo-Westerns: Josh Brolin plays Royal Abbot, a Wyoming rancher fighting to protect his land. But the series takes a wildly unexpected turn toward the supernatural when Abbot discovers a mysterious, perfectly round hole on the edge of his property, and otherworldly events begin occurring around the ranch. The first season of Outer Range left a lot of unanswered questions. Let's hope season two's answers live up to the promise of the premise.

Where to stream: Prime

The Killing Kind

The Killing Kind began its life at Paramount+, where audience responded favorably, but the series was pulled from the service. Paramount's loss is Hulu's gain: This rollercoaster ride of a series tells the story of defense attorney Ingrid Lewis (Emma Appleton) who successfully defends John Webster (Colin Morgan) from stalking charges. When Webster shows up in her life a year later, he's either trying to keep her safe or hiding a murderous secret.

Where to stream: Hulu

Royal Rules of Ohio

Hulu’s Freeform platform is home to this reality show documenting the adventures of a family of African royals in Ohio. Sisters Brenda, Thelma, and Nana Agyekum are the daughters of royal descendants of two of the most wealthy and powerful Ghanaian kingdoms, so life in Columbus, Ohio is going to take some getting used to, especially if they’re going to stay true to the rules of royalty.

Where to stream: Hulu

Last week's picks

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School

The first season of the Pretty Little Liars reboot is a rare thing: A horror TV show that's actually good—so good, it was dubbed "one of the best horror TV shows of the past two decades" by the horror-freaks over at Bloody Disgusting. Season two, subtitled "Summer School," finds high schoolers Tabby, Noa, Imogen, Faran, and Mouse in class for the summer. The season of romance and fun they imagined is interrupted by a terrifying new villain: Bloody Rose, a mysterious knife-wielding murderer who gets off on testing their limits. Choose this if you like genre-bending horror.

Where to stream: Max

Black Twitter: A People’s History

Based on a Wired article by Jason Parham, Black Twitter: A People’s History is a three-part documentary series that details the people and memes that made Black Twitter such an influential and powerful force. Through interviews with W. Kamau Bell, Kid Fury, Jemele Hill, Roxane Gay, Raquel Willis, and many more, Black Twitter: A People’s History examines how Black people on social media shaped our politics and culture throughout Barack Obama’s election, the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and beyond. 

Where to stream: Hulu

Hollywood Con Queen

This three-part documentary series from Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Chris Smith (Tiger King, Fyre) details an extremely strange criminal operation that snared many LA movie industry hopefuls over the course of decades. The con: A criminal impersonated Hollywood executives and hired low-level entertainment industry professionals to work on movies. Victims then traveled to Indonesia only to find there was no job and no movie. Unlike most criminals, the mastermind here wasn't just trying to make money; they had other, more mysterious motivations.

Where to stream: AppleTV

The GOAT

Remember back around 2004, when reality television was everywhere and shows like The Surreal Life had washed-up celebrities live together to see what would happen? The GOAT feels like a throwback to those halcyon days. Hosted by Daniel (Tosh.0) Tosh, The GOAT features 14 "reality superstars" like CJ Franco from F Boy Island and The Bachelorette's Joseph Amabile living together in GOAT Manor and competing for $200,000 and the honor of being named the greatest reality star of all time.

Where to stream: Prime

Stupid Pet Tricks, Season 1

Sometimes, you just need to look at some cute animals. Sarah Silverman hosts this comedy-variety program featuring performing cats, dogs, camels, hamsters, foxes, and all manner of other smart animals doing stupid things. David Letterman originated the gag as a segment on his show back in the 1980s and lends a hand here as the executive producer of this piece of pleasantly brainless feel-good television.

Where to stream: Max

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for May 18, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is harder; I got it in six. Beware, there are spoilers below for May 18, Wordle #1,064! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

There are three common letters from our mnemonic today. One is fairly common, the other is less common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Like shrimp.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel and one "sometimes" vowel. 

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with B. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with Y. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is BRINY.

How I solved today’s Wordle

After RAISE and TOUCH, I tried BLIND to eliminate possible consonants. From here, I had only three possible solutions: I thought BRING was the most likely, followed by BRINK, and I finally guessed BRINY.

Wordle 1,064 6/6

🟨⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was medium difficult. The hint was “someone who helps you with math,” and the answer contained all common letters.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was TUTOR.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

You can get this open-box Magic Keyboard Folio for iPad (10th Gen) on sale for $94.97 right now (reg. $249) with free shipping through May 22. The folio’s two-piece design is detachable, so you can use the keyboard wirelessly while the back panel holds up your tablet. You can use the keyboard’s click-anywhere trackpad for scrolling, a 14-key function row with loads of shortcut options, and an adjustable stand to make your tablet setup feel more like a laptop. Both pieces attach magnetically, and you can adjust the stand to different viewing angles. It’s an open-box item—excess inventory from store shelves or customer returns—but it’s been repackaged and is verified to be in new condition. 

You can get this open-box Apple Magic Keyboard Folio for iPad (10th Gen) on sale for $94.97 right now (reg. $249) with free shipping through May 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

All three of the popular models of Apple's AirPods earbuds are discounted on Amazon right now, reaching a new record low price or matching the lowest price they've ever been. The 2nd Generation AirPods Pro is $179.99 (originally $249), which is the lowest I've ever seen them after looking at price-checking tools. The 2nd Generation AirPods are $79.99 (originally $129) after a 38% discount, $10 lower than it was a week ago. The 3rd Generation Apple AirPods also dropped to $138.59 (originally $169.99), which they last hit this past December.

If you're not sure which AirPods to pick, we have a breakdown of all three to help make the choice a little easier.

• Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) $179.99 (originally $249)

• Apple AirPods (2nd Generation) $79.99 (originally $129)

• Apple AirPods (3rd Generation) $138.59 (originally $169.99)

• Apple AirPods Max $519 (originally $549)

The AirPods Max are rarely discounted, but you can get them for $30 off right now.

Apple AirPods Max

Wireless Over-Ear Headphones, Active Noise Cancelling, Transparency Mode, Personalized Spatial Audio

$449.99 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $99.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$449.99 at Amazon

$549.00 Save $99.01

The 2nd Generation AirPods Pro are some of the best earbuds you can get if you have the funds for them. This newest model, which came out in September, is the first to feature charging via USB-C as opposed to a lightning cable. They have a few new features, like adaptive transparency, but the change in the charging port is the biggest difference. You can expect solid battery life, with Apple claiming up to 30 hours of listening time on a single charge.

If you’re a Gen Xer or a millennial, you remember a time when college was pitched to you as a value-add, rather than a necessary expense. We all know how that turned out. And while many of us graduated and hopefully put our degrees to work, as many as 40 million Americans were classifiable as college dropouts in July 2021, according to according to EducationData.org—folks who previously enrolled in higher ed but left before completing a degree.

Plenty of people from all generations leave school before finishing a degree, for reasons that vary from financial to personal. But even after you've already entered the working world without a degree, going back to finish yours can be a smart move. If you've already earned a good number of general ed credits, for example—say a year’s worth—in theory you should be able to apply them to a degree in a new field that reflects your current ambitions, not those of your teenage self. 

For many adults, going back to school seems daunting, but finishing your degree could lead to higher salaries and more opportunities, or put you on the path to a different career altogether. I talked to an expert to get some tips on how you can apply your life experience to picking up where you left off, and share proactive strategies for finally finish your degree. 

Take stock of your (scholarly) assets

Whether it’s been one year or 20 since you left school, it’s hard to remember exactly what's on your transcript. Record gathering is an important part of the back-to-school process, so start there. Even if you plan on attending the same school you left, it’s essential to know where you stand.

Doing this will help you avoid disappointment or surprises by giving you a better idea of what’s under your belt. As a kid, the college application process seemed complex and difficult, but when you’re in your 30s and have been laid off a few times, it’s really no more complicated than a job application. 

College transcripts are an important way to take stock of your credits and their subject matter, but you might also need your high school transcripts if you’re going to be attending a different school or if it’s been so long that your previous school no longer has those records. Calling, emailing, and filling out forms is your first tstep, but paid services like Parchment can help with some of the legwork.

I asked Dr. Bri Newland, assistant dean of the New York University School of Professional Studies Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies (NYU SPS DAUS), where o begin when determining your credit status. 

“Most program policies on transfer credit typically have a maximum limit of 10 years," she said. "However, it is crucial to schedule a meeting with an experienced academic advisor who will thoroughly assess your transcripts alongside you, regardless of whether you acquired these credits beyond the specified timeframe.”

There’s more factors at play than when you stopped attending. If you have any other type of technical schooling or certifications, gather this paperwork in case there are professional equivalencies that could make your credits go farther.  

“The [NYU SPS DAUS] also assesses prior learning through other experiences beyond college credit," Dr. Newland noted. "For example, military experience can be reviewed for college credit, as well as prior work experience and apprenticeships.“

While colleges and universities are places of higher education, they are also businesses, and want you to keep going (and graduate) to keep their reputation for excellence intact, so they are usually willing to work with you. Save money and time by knocking out as many equivalent credits as possible.

Dr. Newland gave an example of how this works at NYU. “For associate's degrees, students can transfer up to 30 credits, while for bachelor's degrees, 80 credits can be transferred," she said. "This flexibility allows students to build upon their prior learning and accelerate their path to graduation.” 

Reach out to your alma mater

Give the admissions folks at your former school a call. Spring is a great time for adult students to ring, as most graduating high schoolers have already made their enrollment decisions. At many colleges, adult applicants can complete their application whenever they want, especially if it’s a school they already attended. 

Admissions counselors can do everything from getting you set up with an application, to checking your records to make sure that you have what you need to reapply, and even directing you to other school services that could make the process easier. Alumni services serve as post-attendance marketing, enticing you to return and maybe even helping you meet that goal by connecting you to financial resources.

If you’re a working professional, counselors can also help you decide if your previous school can accommodate your schedule. If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people laid off right now, you should apply for financial aid now while you’re between jobs. 

How to pay for it

If you’re in a stable job and your company doesn’t already provide educational resources as a matter of course, it can’t hurt to ask. Continuing education is often a part of competitive compensation packages, and you should to use that to your advantage. Education focused workplaces, especially in tech and healthcare, will sometimes even allow you time off of work to focus on these pursuits.

NYU in particular devotes an entire segment of their school to lifelong learners. Dr.Newland said. Adult and continuing education programs at many schools take a different approach to schoolwork too. “For example, through hands-on projects, real-world case studies, and industry collaborations, NYU SPS DAUS students gain practical experience and develop the tools and strategies needed to tackle complex problems and drive innovation in their fields, she noted.”

For the unemployed or underemployed, you can follow the same route you did as a high schooler: Apply for financial aid, in all its many forms. It’s easier than ever to find loans and scholarships, and you can enter into the process with your eyes open and the financial literacy of an adult. Grants, repayment programs, and even low-cost loans could offer just enough to cover the handful of credits you need to complete if you're close to finishing, while a scholarship could cover a year or more.

Use all the tools at your disposal

I'm not saying you should use AI to write an entrance letter or complete your research papers after work, but imagine if you had ChatGPT to check your grammar and spelling 15 years ago. Digital calendars, digital note-taking, and other educational tools have come a long way in recent years, and you should use them help you across the educational finish line, wherever that may be. For example, software like Otter.ai can take notes for you, and you can summarize them with OpenAI and track your projects on Monday.com.

Remote learning is no longer considered a fringe or lesser higher education experience. Online classes can be your sole method of schooling, and you don’t have choose an online-only schools to get a remote degree.

If you require more accommodations that you did (or that were available) back when you were in college, look into those too: These days, every college has an office deevoted to helping people with disabilities do their best in academia. Neurodivergence, mental illness, or physical ability need not be an impediment in today's educational environment. School services can help you create a plan for success, and social attitudes have shifted to make receiving this assistance more commonplace and easier to access. 

Apply everything you learned as a professional to your back-to-school experience, and you’ll finally be able to get that (very expensive, hopefully equally valuable piece of paper.. 

When it comes to foldable e-bikes, there is one thing that most of them have in common: a straight handlebar with a high and narrow grip. The RadExpand 5 Plus breaks away from that status quo with a low BMX-style handlebar that sets the tone for how comfortable and fun it feels to ride it. The RadExpand 5 Plus is an upgraded version of the previous RadExpand 5, and it brings many great improvements and features that make this e-bike a tough one to compete against. The battery and motor are impressive, but being only able to go up to Class 2 means the RadExpand 5 Plus is limited in its abilities.

I received the RadExpand 5 Plus as a review unit. The e-bike came pre-assembled, and I only needed to install the handlebar and some other minor parts, which was fast and easy to do. Rad Power says all of their RadExpand 5 Plus come pre-assembled, so it should be an easy set-up. You can see a full breakdown of how to install the e-bike from RadPower here.

RadExpand 5 Plus Electric Folding Bike

Features front suspension, hydraulic disc brakes, turn signals, and retractable pedals.

$1,899.00 at Rad Power Bikes

Shop Now

Shop Now

$1,899.00 at Rad Power Bikes

Pros and cons of the RadExpand 5 Plus

Pros

• Handling: The low BMX-style handlebar and a well-thought-out design make the handling top-tier.

• Accessible: The user-friendly controls make it easy to pick up and get to the fun parts.

• Comfortable: The 4-inch tires, a padded saddle, and front suspension make this a comfortable ride.

• Versatile: There are many ways to customize the e-bike and add any accessory you can imagine.

Cons

• Class: Although the motor is strong and capable, the bike only goes up to Class 2, topping at 20mph.

• Portability: The BMX-style bars mean it might not be as compact in tight spaces, and the 72.5 lb weight doesn't help.

• Not for tall people: The bike only works for people between 4'10"-5'10", leaving tall people out of the equation.

Specs:

• Classification: Class 1 or 2 (up to 20 moh)

• Brakes: Gemma Hydraulic disc brakes with 180 mm rotors

• Tires: Beefy 20" by 4" tires with some off-roading treads

• Frame geometry: Step-through frame

• Lights: LED brake light, tail light, and LED front headlights.

• Battery: 48V 15 Ah 720 Wh with Safe Shield Technology

• Display: Full-Color LCD Display

• Motor: 750W with 64 Nm of Torque

• Pedal Assist: 5 Levels (magnet-sensing cadence assist with pedals)

• Claimed Range: 60 mi on average, but can get up to 80 mi

• Throttle: Grip twist

• Weight of e-bike: 73.8 lb with battery

• Rider height range: One frame fits 4’10” to 5’10”

• Maximum rider weight: 315 lbs

• Maximum load on the rear rack: 59 lbs

The RadExpand 5 Plus is a big improvement on its predecessor, and it should be to justify the $300 price tag increase. It now comes with 50 mm travel front suspensions with preload adjustments and lockouts so you can choose your preferred level of bumpiness; hydraulic disc brakes over the mechanic disc brakes; a much-improved LCD display over the LED one; turn signals; a battery with "Safe Shield Technology," which improves battery fire safety; and an improved torque sensor, which is supposed to feel more natural and improve the mileage. You can see more about the specs and other details from the Rad Power website.

How does the RadExpand 5 Plus e-bike ride on the street?

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

The RadExpand 5 Plus did not feel like a foldable e-bike when I rode it, in a good way. Yes, the step-through design is the same, but the choice to go for a BMX-style handlebar was bold, and it paid off. Your run-of-the-mill folding bike usually has an elongated handlebar stem, putting your grip in a higher and more narrow place than normal. This can make handling feel less in control, especially at high speeds. The RadExpand 5 Plus' lower grip and wider-stance handlebar gave me more control on my ride. It felt much better than other folding bikes I have ridden before. The e-bike handles like a mix between a cruiser and a mountain bike, and the four-inch-wide beefy tires have some off-roading treads, which made me feel comfortable riding it on some dirt paths. Even when going downhill and hitting around 28 mph, the handling felt so secure that I was always in control.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

When it comes to pedal assist, the RadExpand 5 Plus has a 64 Nm torque sensor that matches your level of effort, so if you pedal harder, it gives you more pedal assistance and vice versa. I can change the level of pedal assist from one to five (or zero for no pedal assist and just leg power alone). Adjusting the pedal assist and finding the right level while going up a hill was smooth and practical with the controls placed on the left side of the handlebar. Hitting the maximum speed of 20 mph in class 2 with a pedal assist of 5 was very easy and quick, but I did have to move my legs very fast, and I wish there were an eighth gear to make it easier. With torque alone and no throttle, I was able to reach 20mph smoothly as I moved up through the five levels. My terrain was flat, and it took less than 15 seconds to get there. On the left side of the handlebar, there are also the controls to turn on the turning signals and a bell to alert those around you.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

I was pleased with the LCD display. It shows all the information you need to know, and it is easy to navigate. I just wish it showed a percentage on the battery bar. The half-twist throttle on the right side of the handlebar is powerful for a foldable e-bike. On just throttle alone, it was able to go up the meanest hill in my area with ease, which is about nine degrees. That same hill on pedal assist level five felt like I was cruising on flat ground. I am confident that if you use the throttle and pedal assist level five, the bike can go up most hills without issues. With such a responsive pedal assist and powerful motor, it is a shame that Rad Power didn't give the rider the option to go up to class 3. It leaves a lot of untapped potential that the RadExpand 5 Plus could have on the table.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

Rad Power says you will get an average of 20 to 60 miles on a single charge, but of course, it will depend on your use of pedal assist, throttle, weight, terrain, and other factors. Judging from my time riding it and the distance I covered, I feel like you can easily push past the 60-mile range if you're conservative. My estimation is you can get more than 80 miles of riding on a single charge.

How does the RadExpand 5 Plus fold?

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

A foldable e-bike's main purpose is to be portable and compact. And that's where the RadExpand 5 Plus fell a bit short. The e-bike weighs 73.8 pounds, and it was not easy to fold or maneuver by myself. It also has a detached Velcro wrap that I'm not exactly sure where is meant to hold the e-bike together once folded. I did end up finding a place that made sense, but I think a permanent place with an easier snap-on device like Ride1Up's Portola would've been an easy and smarter design choice.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

The decision to give the e-bike a BMX-style handlebar means it isn't as compact as a flat and narrow one. On my usual test to fit it in my 2011 Toyota Corolla's trunk, I struggled to make it fit, almost giving up at one point. (I did eventually manage to make it fit, thanks to some smart maneuvering on my part.) If you don't plan to take the RadExpand 5 Plus on your car, this is probably not a big issue. The e-bike does compact well otherwise.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

The RadExpand 5 Plus is versatile and customizable

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

One of my favorite parts of an e-bike experience is sharing it with loved ones. The RadExpand 5 Plus has access to many accessories from the Rad Power store. I used the Rad Trailer with the Pet Insert to take Gambino on a ride. The pedal assist and throttle make even carrying the trailer a breeze. Even going up some hills, I was able to easily find the right combination to make it through easily. You can carry a maximum weight of 100 pounds on the trailer and 84 pounds on the Pet Insert. You can get a rear and/or front rack to be able to use many of their accessories. Some are easier to install than others, but the Rad Trailer and Pet Insert were easy and quick to assemble as well as take on and off the bike (they just need a single bolt to put on the e-bike). Unfortunately, the rear can only hold a maximum of 59 pounds, so you can't have another adult in as a passenger on the back.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

Closing thoughts

The RadExpand 5 Plus was a joy to ride. It felt like a comfortable BMX/mountain hybrid e-bike that also happens to fold in half. The inclusion of small details like rear light turning signals, a bell, a nice LED screen, and compatibility with many accessories makes the RadExpand 5 Plus a well-rounded e-bike that can be a good fit for most people looking to save some space at home or take their e-bike on their trunk. The five-level pedal assist with the torque sensor is very responsive and easy to use. The throttle is powerful yet smooth and easy to control thanks to the top-tier handling from the BMX-style handlebars and beefy tires. If Rad Power had made the RadExpand 5 Plus able to fit people taller than 5'10" and get up to class 3, I could see this being one of the best foldable e-bikes for comfort and versatility.

Microsoft first released support for passkeys in Windows 11 last year, introducing users to a passwordless way to sign into their Microsoft accounts. Now, all consumer accounts can finally generate passkeys for use across Windows, Android, and iOS.

Microsoft announced the full rollout on its security blog this week. The company notes that attacks on passwords have surged more than 3,378 percent since it first introduced Windows Hello, its biometric-based login method for Windows 10, fueling its efforts to replace passwords with passkeys. Starting this week, Microsoft will now let you add and use passkeys that let you access your account with your face, fingerprint, or a device PIN on Windows, Google, and Apple platforms.

Passkeys have been increasing in availability across a number of sites and platforms, with Google even going the “passwordless” route by adding its own passkey systems. In short, they offer more security than a traditional password, as they're device-based: Your device holds one part of the key, while the app or site—in this case, Microsoft—holds the other. There's no "password" to hack: Without the trusted device, bad actors can't break into your accounts.

Microsoft has slowly been working towards adding passkey support across its ecosystem, starting with a passkey manager in Windows 11, which lets you save passkeys for other sites and apps directly on your device. Creating a passkey with Windows will also hopefully help make signing into other apps easier, as it sounds like Microsoft wants to expand where its Windows passkeys are accepted.

With password crackers becoming so prevalent, and passwords requirements becoming increasingly complex, passkeys offer both a convenient and more secure way to log into your account that won’t require you to write down some long and overwhelming password—thus removing some of the additional security of the password right off the bat—to remember it.

You can manage your passkeys on Windows 11 by navigating to Settings > Accounts > Passkey Settings and pressing the three dots next to any passkey to manage it.

When you're in a financial bind and need to borrow money quickly, two common options are payday loans and installment loans. Both provide fast access to cash, but they work very differently in terms of how you repay the borrowed amount. Here's a look at the key distinctions and some guidance on which type of loan may be preferable depending on your circumstances.

What is a payday loan?

A payday loan is a short-term, high-cost loan that typically needs to be repaid in full by your next payday, usually within two to four weeks. The maximum loan amounts are relatively small, usually $500 or less.

To get a payday loan, you provide the lender with a post-dated check for the full loan amount plus fees and interest. On your next payday, the lender cashes that check to recover what you owe. If you can't repay, you may be able to roll the loan over by paying only the fees and interest, but this will result in additional high charges being added.

Payday loans have extremely high annual percentage rates (APRs) that can exceed 400%. The combination of short repayment periods and exorbitant interest rates makes these loans very difficult to pay off, which is why many borrowers end up trapped in cycles of debt.

What is an installment loan?

Installment loans, as their name suggests, allow you to repay what you borrowed in a series of scheduled payments or installments over a period of months or years. Typical repayment terms range anywhere from a few months to a few decades.

The funds from an installment loan can often be used for a variety of purposes like debt consolidation, major purchases, home improvements, and more. You'll usually repay the loan on a fixed monthly schedule, making equal payments that go toward both principal and interest.

Installment loans can be secured by collateral like a home or car title, or they can be unsecured. Interest rates tend to be lower than payday loans, but will vary based on factors like your credit score, income, and whether the loan is secured or not.

Which should you choose?

In almost every situation, an installment loan is the better choice compared to a high-risk payday loan. Installment loans:

• Are far less expensive overall due to lower fees and interest rates

• Give you longer to repay in reasonably affordable installments

• Are available in higher amounts suitable for bigger expenses

• Are less likely to trap you in never-ending cycles of debt

The only instance when a payday loan could potentially make sense is if you need a very small amount of money to cover an emergency and you're certain you can repay it quickly to avoid interest charges piling up. But in general, the high costs and short repayment terms of payday loans make them exceedingly risky.

Whenever possible, explore installment loan options from personal loan providers, credit unions, banks, or online lenders. With better terms and more affordable repayment plans, they are almost always the smarter choice over predatory payday loans. For more, here are some tips for paying off loans early.

If you’ve ever noticed that the edge of your board gets splintered while you’re cutting, you’re dealing with one of the most common problems for woodworkers: tearout. Tearout can be caused by using the wrong type of saw blade, a dull blade, or from improperly positioned lumber. But sometimes, you can do all these things correctly and still have a splinter problem. Sanding can help if your splintering is minimal, but here are some other methods to help prevent splintering from happening.

How to prevent tearout with a backer board

One of the most common ways to prevent splintering when using a chop saw or miter saw is to use a backer board. This is a simple way to support the grain of your lumber from the back side while cutting. Since the blade on a saw used for cross-cutting spins 90 degrees to the direction of the grain, the blade can tend to pull splinters out on the back side of your board. Place a scrap of wood against the fence of the saw—the part that you push your lumber up against to make your cut—before you position your board. Then, place your board against the scrap and make your cut through both the board and your scrap. The backer board will support the lumber you’re cutting, reducing tearout.

You can also use a backer board on a table saw, but you’ll need a board that’s at least as wide as the cut you’re making for it to work, making this method impractical in some circumstances. To use this method, place the board you’re cutting on top of another piece of lumber before cutting on the table saw. This can help some with tearout on the bottom side of your piece.

Preventing tearout with tape

Tape is another good fix for preventing tearout. If you’re cutting on a table saw, using a strip of masking tape or blue tape on the top side of your board above where the blade is positioned and cutting with the good side down can help prevent tearout. On a circular saw, you can use tape on the bottom side of your board, cutting with the good side up. Be aware that cutting through tape will likely dull your saw blade more quickly, but it might be worth it, depending on how precise you need the edges of your cut to be.

Preventing tearout with scoring

To keep tearout from happening, one helpful method is to score the board along your cut line before cutting. You can do this with a utility knife, a scoring tool, or any blade you have handy by making a groove with your tool using a straight edge along your cut line before making your cut. Essentially what this method does is pre-cut the surface of your board without teeth, making it less likely for the saw blade to catch on splinters as it spins and the teeth exit the board.

Reducing tearout using a router

If tearout prevention methods don’t work or are impractical, you can make a cut that’s an eighth to a quarter inch outside your cut line and then attach a straight board along your cut line and trim the remaining material with a flush trim bit in a router. Since the router blade usually spins perpendicular to your board, a sharp flush trim bit should produce very little tearout. For curved or irregular cuts, you can make a template that’s the exact size and shape of your cut, then use the router to trim your piece to the shape you want using the same method. This is also a good way to make multiple pieces the same size and shape.

Preventing tearout when drilling holes

If you’re using a drill press, clamping a scrap piece of wood onto the foot of your press before drilling can give the bottom of your board’s grain support as the drill bit exits the board. You can reduce splintering using this method with a hand-held drill, too, by clamping a scrap to the back side of your mark, making sure the clamp is clear of the hole, and drilling with the scrap in place. You can also drill a shallow hole on the opposite side of your board and then drill through from the top, reducing the exposed surface grain that needs to be drilled through.

Combining tearout prevention methods

There’s no rule that says you can’t use tape and a backer board and scoring at the same time. Combining methods, especially if you’re trying to make a very clean, precise cut, will decrease tearout even more. You should also make sure your blade is sharp and that you're using the appropriate one for the job you’re doing. If you’re making a cross cut, make sure you have a cross-cut blade on your saw, and if you’re making a rip cut, going with the grain, make sure you have a blade that’s designed for that cut on your saw.

People think of mulch as something that provides a unifying look to their garden beds, but that’s not the reason you need it. Mulch, when done right, provides an insulating layer that protects your plants from extreme weather, keeps the soil from drying out, and provides nutrition back to your beds as it decomposes. It’s a lot of work to get mulch into place, so it can be frustrating to view it as temporary. But mulch breaks down—it's supposed to. A lot of people complain about their mulch blowing away, but fortunately this is a solvable problem. 

The right way to mulch

The surface of your soil is vulnerable. It is exposed to the sun and can easily dry out. It’s exposed to the wind, which can blow it away if you don’t have plant roots anchoring it. We are now experiencing extreme weather conditions all the time, including heat domes in summer and extreme ice in the winter, all of which wreak havoc on your plants. A healthy layer of three to six inches of mulch can really make a difference.

You want to ensure that this organic material you choose is pulled away from the stems of your plants. (Mulch shouldn’t be up against tree trunks, either.) You want your plants to be planted into the soil, not the mulch, and each plant has a natural place it should be buried up to in the soil, as it comes from the nursery or grows naturally, and the mulch would smother the plants. Pulling the mulch away creates a well around the base of plants, which is perfect for watering. 

Heftier mulch won’t blow away

Big box stores tend to sell bagged, dyed mulch. This mulch has three issues that make it a poor choice: the dye itself, which fades and adds a chemical to your beds; the lack of nutrition in it; and finally, people don't put enough of it down, and a light layer isn’t going to do much. This dyed mulch can look great at first, but again, that’s not the purpose of mulch, and the dye quickly gets bleached out anyway.Sometimes, people put down plastic before the mulch or landscape fabric, and this, too, is unadvised. The plastic will break down; it does not usually suppress weeds as well as you’d think; and it introduces microplastics to your beds. Getting rid of that plastic by taking it back up is a miserable process, too. 

Instead, you want natural material to sit on top of your soil, and you want a hefty amount of it—ideally, three to six inches deep. I like to use wood chips because they have weight to them, create a uniform look, decompose slowly and are spectacular for the soil as they compost. They’re also free—I use ChipDrop to get them yearly and have been using them for 10 years without much issue. You can also use straw (not hay—there’s an important distinction), or leaves. In the fall, rake or blow your leaves into your beds instead of bagging them. Leaf mulch becomes amazing compost while supporting local beneficial insects as a place to nest over winter. Using a heftier amount of mulch, and heftier mulch, means it is less likely to blow away. Even if some of it does, you still have a substantial amount of it. 

You may only think your mulch is blowing away

Mulch, when done right, decomposes in place, enriching the soil. It may be simply that what looks like disappearing mulch is really this process taking place. It can also be that it’s your dyed mulch losing color. You could also be washing the mulch away, if you water overhead instead of watering your plants at the soil line via drip irrigation.

Even if your mulch migrates, while your plant beds are now more exposed, it’s not really a problem for the places the mulch migrates to. It should just break down there, as well. The bigger issue is that your beds are left exposed to the elements and you lose the benefit. 

How to keep your beds tidier

Curbing or edging your beds can help mulch stay in place and keep your beds looking uniform, whether you use plastic or metal or bricks.  If you have a well-planted garden, the wind should be screened by your landscaping, as you want a healthy mix of understory, shrubs and then a canopy layer of trees. If you experience enough wind to be a problem for your mulch, you might consider that your landscaping has left your plants too exposed and introduce more of these layers. You can also consider ground cover, which is, hands down, the best way to reduce erosion, since it introduces roots to anchor the soil. I am reluctant to mention mulch glue, because I think it’s unnecessary, but there usually isn’t anything problematic in the glue itself. It’s a mix of bark dust and other wood products that are heated into a sticky adhesive you can spray onto your mulch to keep it in place. However, I fear it prevents the mulch from doing the thing we ask of it, which is to break down into compost. 

Mulch isn't permanent

Mulch is a to-do item you should address yearly. Choose the right kind of mulch, and make sure you are applying enough of it in the right places, and replace it when you see it disappearing. Occasionally, take a peek at the soil below your composting mulch. It’s likely to be a healthy layer of humus full of happy worms and mycorrhizae.

Other streamers, especially those with close corporate ties to major movie studios, might reel in a few more major theatrical releases than Netflix. Where Netflix outshines them, however, is in its slate of original movies produced specifically for the streaming service. At a glance, it might seem as though the streamer emphasizes quantity over quality, but they've released nine Best Picture Academy Award nominees since 2019. Oscars aren't everything, of course—but they're not nothing, either.

Here, then, are some of the best recent movies streaming on Netflix, whether wide theatrical releases you might have missed, or originals.

Society of the Snow (2023)

The true story of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team lost in the Andes following a place crash has been the subject of multiple documentaries and two previous dramas. For all that, this would seem to be the best of all of them: a thoughtful and tasteful take on what's sometimes been presented as a salacious drama, with director J. A. Bayona emphasizing both the physical perils faced by the team, but also the spiritual toll of survival.

Thanksgiving (2023)

Patrick Dempsey stars in this funny but bleak satire from Eli Roth, his first horror film since 2013. When an unruly mob storms a Walmart (sorry: RightMart) on Black Friday, violence and bloodshed ensue, leaving one of the victims of the incident to seek revenge. It's wild and gory holiday fun.

Anyone but You (2023)

A loose spin on Much Ado About Nothing, Anyone But You stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as a couple who meet, hit it off—and then immediately piss each other off such that neither really wants to see each other again. Until, of course, they need wedding dates and find themselves surrounded by scheming friends. It's not wildly out there as rom-com premises go, but this one's briskly directed and boasts strong chemistry between the leads.

Orion in the Dark (2024)

Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) wrote this DreamWorks animated adaptation of the Emma Yarlett novel. When Orion is visited by the literal incarnation of his fear of the dark, he's taken on a whirlwind journey around the world to explore the world of night and help him to face his fears.

The Perfect Find (2023)

Numa Perrier’s film hits plenty of the traditional rom-com beats, but no matter: Lead Gabrielle Union provides the spark that ignites the whole film (based on the Tia Williams novel). She’s never been better than she is here, playing Jenna, a woman in her 40s making a clean break of a long-term relationship and taking on a high-profile, high-stakes career in beauty journalism—only to wind up in a one-night stand with Eric (Keith Powers), 15 years younger and the son of her boss.

Damsel (2024)

Netflix's favorite action lead, Millie Bobby Brown, is back in this dark fantasy from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later). Brown plays Elodie, the damsel of the title, offered into an arranged marriage by her family, only to discover that she's marked as the sacrifice to a dragon. Which turns out to be bad news for her new in-laws.

Rebel Moon, Parts One and Two (2023/2024)

Zack Snyder, late of the entire DC cinematic universe, isn't to everyone's taste—but his Army of the Dead, also for Netflix, was a fun spin on the zombie formula, done as a heist movie. His followup is pure science fiction: a multi-part (it's unclear how many parts that will be) space opera that blends Snyder's distinctive visual style with Star Wars-style action. Sofia Boutella stars as a former soldier who rallies warriors from across the galaxy to join in a revolt against the imperial Motherworld on the title's out-of-the-way farming moon.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

This short adaptation of the Roald Dahl story finally earned Wes Anderson his first Oscar. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the titular Henry Sugar, a man who uses his inherited fortune to fund his gambling habit. When he learns of a secret means of winning by seeing through the eyes of others, he comes to perceive more than he, perhaps, bargained for. It's cute and sweet, and among one of Anderson's most visually inventive works (which is saying quite a bit). At 39 minutes, it never has time to wear out its welcome—even if you're not a huge fan of Anderson''s twee sensibilities. Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade also star.

American Symphony (2023)

Director Matthew Heineman's film follows a year in the lives of writer Suleika Jaouad and her husband, musician Jon Batiste, during which she confronts a recurrence of a rare form of leukemia while he constructs his first symphony. It's a moving film that goes beyond the obvious tropes to make the case that there are things that only music can say. It had a lot of Oscar buzz, while receiving just a single nomination for Best Song.

Scoop (2024)

The great Gillian Anderson plays real-life British journalist Emily Maitlis, who lead the BBC2 team that secured the disastrous (for the Prince) interview with Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) that laid bare his associations with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Keeley Hawes and Billie Piper also star.

We Have a Ghost (2023)

Christopher Landon, writer/director behind innovative comedy-horror movies like Happy Death Day and Freaky (and, briefly, of the next Scream movie), helms this similarly fun but more family-friendly entry. Anthony Mackie is in the lead as Frank Presley, who, with his family, buys a cheap fixer-upper, only for his son Kevin (Jahi Winston) to discover a ghost (played by David Harbour) unliving in the attic. So far, familiar territory, but Kevin wants to help their new ghost while dad only wants to make money—and so, their ghost goes viral.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

He may be America's least favorite Chris, but Mr. Pratt still leads the voice cast for the year's second highest-grossing movie: a colorful, goofy animated adventure pitting proudly Italian-American brothers Mario and Luigi against Bowser (Jack Black), King of the Koopas.

May December (2023)

Todd Haynes directs this insightful and moving, but also deliberately campy, story of an actress visiting the woman whom she'll be playing in a film. The movie's deft, and unexpected, blending of tones makes it pretty consistently fascinating, and the lead performances from Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton are all top-tier.

Nyad (2023)

Annette Benning stars as the real-life Diana Nyad, who swam from Florida to Cuba in her 60s. The movie succeeds in large part because of the performances from and chemistry between lead Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, both of whom received Oscar nominations for their work here.

The Killer (2023)

David Fincher's latest didn't seem to generate his typical buzz, perhaps because it's so thoroughly action-oriented (a far cry from his last Netflix original, the screenplay-writing drama Mank). Michael Fassbender plays the movie's nameless hitman protagonist, a fastidious and ruthless killer who makes the first mistake of his career—accidentally shooting the wrong person—and then finds his carefully managed life crumbling faster than he can keep up.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

The sequel to one of the very best superhero movies pretty much ever is also excellent, and even more visually innovative than the first. Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is back, joined by Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), herself on a secret mission that puts them both at odds with pretty much every Spider in the multiverse.

Rustin (2023)

Colman Domingo gives a stellar performance (earning a Best Actor Oscar nomination) as the title's Bayard Rustin, the gay Civil Rights leader who planned the March on Washington. Not only is it a corrective to our very straight-centered vision of the Civil Rights Movement, it's a stylish and moving biopic in its own right.

Nimona (2023)

Long in the making, and based on the similarly delightful graphic novel by ND Stevenson, Nimona is a heartfelt, joyful, and funny fantasy set in a futuristic world that's also thoroughly medieval in its look and feel. Ballister Boldheart, alongside his boyfriend, Ambrosius Goldenloin, is about to be knighted by the queen, and he’ll be the first commoner ever to receive the honor. All good, until he’s framed for the queen’s murder and forced to flee, becoming the criminal that the snobs already took him for. Luckily (or not) he’s joined by Nimona, a teenager who’s an outcast because of her shapeshifting powers.

Wedding Season (2023)

Asha (Pallavi Sharda) just broke off her engagement and left her Wall Street investment firm in favor of a Jersey City startup. Her concerned mother sets her daughter up on a dating app, and Asha acquiesces to a single date with the first match: Ravi (Suraj Sharma). It doesn’t go particularly well, but they’re both under a lot of parental pressure to get married, and Asha has about a dozen weddings to go to over the course of the summer, most of them filled with busybodies who want to see her in a relationship. So, naturally (for a movie), Ahsa and Ravi decide to play at being a couple to get people off their backs—which works out fine, until it doesn’t.

They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

This smart, funny genre mashup spins plenty of plates, and mostly manages to keep them from crashing down. John Boyega stars as Fontaine, a drug dealer in a world just off to the side of our own (there’s definitely some Blaxsploitation influence in the dress styles). Following a showdown with one-time Pimp of the Year(!) Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is shot dead before waking up in his own bed with nothing, seemingly, having changed. Teaming up with Slick Charles and sex worker Yo Yo (Teyonah Parris), he leads the three of them into an unlikely web of scientific conspiracy.

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Look at this cast: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha'la Herrold (Industry), and Kevin Bacon are all on hand for this apocalyptic thriller that has that Bird Box vibe without the alien implications—the monsters here are all human. As technology begins to inexplicably fail, our protagonists find themselves in a last-days-of-America scenario, including a scene of self-driving Teslas run amok. It's occasionally a little on the nose, but still a pretty compelling thriller.

City Hunter (2024)

The City Hunter manga, about the titular detective agency, has been adapted several times in the past, with very mixed results. This latest looks like it might be the best: a candy-colored, high-action, appropriately goofy take starring Ryohei Suzuki as lead detective Ryo Saeba and Misato Morita as the daughter of his murdered partner, with whom he teams up to avenge that death and to find a missing teenage runaway with deadly superpowers.

Spaceman (2024)

Adam Sandler stars here in one of his occasional dramatic roles, here as a Czech astronaut coming to terms with the potential dissolution of his marriage. At the edge of the solar system. With some help from a spider-like alien creature trying to understand humanity. Carey Mulligan and Isabella Rossellini co-star.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

If it's not entirely on the same level as the Aardman-animated original from way back in 2000, it's still a delightful and cheeky return from the escapees from Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy's Farm. Thandiwe Newton leads the impressive voice cast.

Down the Rabbit Hole (2024)

The House of Flowers creator Manolo Caro directs this quirky and thoughtful drama about meticulous, fussy kid Tochtli (Miguel Valverde), living in a palatial estate somewhere in rural Mexico. He's old enough to start questioning his wildly privileged and sheltered life, slowly discovering that his father Yolcaut (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is a major, well-connected drug lord. It's a quietly stylish drama that avoids taking any obvious routes.

Now that so many of us are signed up to cloud storage services, USB drives aren't as ubiquitous as they once were, but they still have their uses. One of those uses is running an entire computer system entirely on the USB stick, which you can then bring anywhere. Your files and apps are always with you rather than being left at home or at the office, and if you're at a new desk you don't have to spend time getting everything set up the way you want—just plug in the drive, and you're up and running.

How it works

Of course you can't take an entire PC around with you on a USB stick—you need a monitor, a keyboard, a motherboard, and everything else. That said, all of the software and storage can be handled on a portable USB drive: As long as you have access to a computer with a spare USB slot, you can run your portable PC.

There's no interference with the existing setup on the computer you're using either, so you can borrow one from a colleague or a friend without causing them any hassle. You reboot the PC, tell it to load up your USB stick rather than what's on the internal drive, and your operating system appears. When you're done, shut down the computer, unplug your USB drive, and you've left no trace behind.

All you need to set this up is a USB drive. Credit: Lifehacker

It's great if you're always moving between locations, and want to have access to the same desktop interface wherever you go. It can also be useful if you're trying to troubleshoot problems with your hardware setup, or if you want to try out different operating systems without installing anything permanently on your computer.

You do need to bear in mind some caveats, though. A USB drive isn't as fast or as capable as a full desktop or laptop system, so you're limited to basic computing tasks. This doesn't really work on Macs either, because of their different architecture—if you need to run a separate system on macOS, the best approach is setting up a virtual machine.

Choosing an OS

When it comes to picking an operating system for your USB PC, you can use Windows if you'd like to—via a third-party tool such as WinToUSB—though you will need a paid license for it, and the user experience isn't the best. A better idea is to go for a flavor of Linux: Not only is the software free to use, it's also more lightweight, which means you're not putting as much stress on the USB drive and everything should run more smoothly.

If you're new to Linux, it's an open source desktop OS that comes in a wide variety of flavors known as distros. It doesn't offer the same kind of broad software selection or hardware support as Windows or macOS, but all the core computing apps are covered: You can browse the web, check your email, do some work, edit images, and plenty more on Linux.

Puppy Linux is one of your options here. Credit: Puppy Linux

When it comes to choosing the distro you want to use, it's really up to you: Just about any version of Linux can be run fairly easily from a USB stick. Make sure you look for a feature called "persistence" in the distro documentation, though—this means you're going to be able to save settings and files to the USB drive, rather than starting up fresh with a clean slate every time you boot it up.

Ideally, you want to choose a distro that's lightweight and basic, to give you the smoothest operation possible. Puppy Linux and Linux Lite are often recommended for this particular purpose, while Tails is great if security is a priority—it automatically connects to the Tor network when you go online. Ubuntu is an excellent choice too, offering a polished interface and plenty of help documentation.

Getting started

Head to the official website for your Linux distro of choice, then look for an ISO download—this is essentially the operating system in its entirety. Downloads like this can often run to several gigabytes in size, so you might have to wait a while. It's also worth checking in the distro's documentation to see if there are any notes or recommendations regarding USB installation.

Next, you need a program to put the ISO on the USB drive for you—not just to copy over the file, but to make the drive bootable. There are a few options here, including Rufus, but we've gone for Etcher for this guide: It's really simple to use, and you can run it on both Windows and macOS (and, indeed, Linux).

Etcher can flash a drive for you in minutes. Credit: Lifehacker

Fire up Etcher, and you'll see there are three stages: Pick Flash from file to pick the ISO from disk, then Select target to choose a USB drive connected to your computer, and then click Flash to complete the operation. As far as USB drives go, a capacity of at least 8GB is recommended, plus the fastest read/write speeds you can find—you might find more requirements listed on the pages of the distro you've chosen.

With all that taken care of, you can use your USB drive by putting it in a spare USB port on any computer, then restarting the computer and choosing to boot from the USB stick. How this is done varies, but it usually involves pressing a key to choose a boot device while the computer's starting up—look for a message on screen or check the documentation that came with the computer, if you're not sure.

There are a lot of reasons people take on roommates, but one of the most common is simple economics: Rent keeps rising, half of all tenants in the U.S. are paying more rent than they can actually afford, and they can defray those costs significantly by splitting the rent and other bills with someone else.

All of those benefits are predicated on one assumption, however: That your roommate will keep up their end of the bargain and, you know, actually pay their share of everything. When considering a roommate, you have to consider how it will impact you both personally and financially—and be prepared for the possibility that your roommate turns deadbeat and stops paying their rent or share of the bills. Whether it’s due to their own personal financial hardship or because you accidentally let a sociopath into your home, a deadbeat roommate can be a disaster. If your roommate stops paying their share, here’s what you can do about it.

Gather data showing they aren't paying rent

Your first step when dealing with this situation is to get the facts. If your roommate is on the lease as a cotenant, has a separate rental agreement, or if you at least have a roommate agreement of some sort in writing, review the document to see what their financial responsibilities are and what consequences, if any, are spelled out.

Next, establish evidence. Gather records of missed payments and your attempts to collect the overdue rent. If you haven’t sent your roommate any requests for overdue payments, start doing so in a way that leaves a trail—emails or written requests.

Keep paying the rent. If your roommate is a cotenant or otherwise officially on the lease you might assume they are responsible for their share of the rent, but most lease and rental agreements specify that all tenants are “jointly and severally” liable, which means the landlord can seek the full rent amount from any tenant. If you only pay your share of the rent, you can get into serious financial difficulties if the landlord goes after you for the balance.

If you don’t have any sort of written agreement (if your roommate isn’t officially listed anywhere on the lease), you can’t just kick them out. You can ask them to leave, sure, but most states grant homestead rights to anyone who has occupied a home for a period of time, meaning they often have a specific grace period before you can legally make them leave. Check the laws in your state so you know how you have to proceed.

Try a (mediated) negotiation with your roommate

Once you know where you stand in terms of a written agreement, your next step is to open a dialogue. Note the financial burden they’re putting on you, and see if you can’t come up with a way for them to contribute at least some of what they owe. Calling in a professional mediator can keep things civil and offer a neutral way to discuss your issues; many cities offer mediation services for landlords and tenants to resolve conflicts—for example, in New York, the New York Peace Institute offers mediation services. If your city doesn’t, you can contact the American Arbitration Association for mediator referrals in your area. You can also try to negotiate a portion of the back rent—sometimes half of what you’re owed is better than zero.

If talks go nowhere, you can warn your roommate that your next step is legal action. At this point you could decide to cut your losses and try to negotiate a timeline for them to leave the apartment, using the possibility of a lawsuit as motivation. You might never get your money back this way, but at least you can stem the bleeding and remove this source of stress from your life.

If necessary, exercise your legal options

If all else fails, you might need to sue your roommate to try and collect the money. This isn’t actually all that difficult, but you will need to prepare:

• Agreements. Have copies of all written agreements with your roommate—a lease, sublease, or roommate contract are best, but any sort of written agreement that spells out their financial responsibilities should be acquired. If your roommate is on a separate sublease or rental agreement, ask your landlord for a copy.

• Demand letter. Next, send your roommate a letter detailing what they owe, called a demand letter. This should lay out in detail all the payments they’ve missed and your attempts to collect, including dates when you asked for the rent or other bills to be paid. It should also include a formal request for the money by a certain date. Send the letter registered mail or through any service that provides proof of delivery.

• Sue. You can usually bring a suit like this in small claims court, which means you won’t necessarily need a lawyer. As long as you can prove that a) you had an agreement with the roommate wherein they paid rent and/or a share of the bills, b) they broke the agreement by not paying, and c) you suffered a financial loss as a result (because you had to pay all the rent), you have a very good chance of winning. This is where all the data you gathered comes in handy: If you can show a written agreement, prove that your roommate didn’t pay as agreed and that you tried to collect, prove that you gave them notice, and show that you paid the rent on their behalf, you’ll have a solid case.

Eviction is tough, but possible

If you go through all of these steps and your roommate still won’t pay—or move out—you can consider trying to evict them. This can be a much more difficult process, and you’ll likely need to hire a lawyer to navigate your state’s laws around tenancy and homestead rights. It’s not a fast process (it can take up to a year), so going this route can cost you a lot of money while your roommate remains in your home, still not paying rent.

If you have a good relationship with your landlord and the roommate is on the lease, you can enlist their help in an eviction process. Keep in mind that if you’ve violated your lease by having an off-book roommate, you might find yourself being evicted right alongside them, so proceed with caution.

And, no, you can’t engage in what’s known as a “self-help eviction,” doing things like changing the locks, throwing their stuff into the street, or making their room unlivable in some way. Even if their tenancy is off the books, these tactics are illegal and will just put you in a worse position.

In the end, if your roommate turns deadbeat, your best bet is to negotiate with them, then try to recover your money through small claims court. Whatever you decide to do, be patient, keep records, and think about how you’ll avoid this situation next time.

A well-constructed meatball is an inherently perfect food. Tender, flavorful meat gently compacted into a burly sphere—big or small—always feels like a special reward. Improving upon it isn’t necessary, so I consider the following embellishment as a way to honor the meatball’s innate perfection: You should try deep frying your meatballs.

The idea of breading and deep frying the illustrious meatball didn’t come to me the usual way (a stroke of inspiration bestowed upon me by the angel of food). Instead, I caught news that this season, Yankee Stadium is serving up fried meatballs. Meatball makers everywhere know that technically all the best meatballs get a quick pan-fry before being finished off with a sauce (unless you’re baking them so there's less mess, which I respect), and the stadium’s preparation method remains a bit unclear.

Whether or not Yankee Stadium’s fried meatballs are just regular meatballs dunked in a fryer, the idea certainly inspired me to step it up and create my own vision for the perfect fried meat orb.

How to make deep-fried meatballs

The whole point of deep-frying anything is to get a crunchy crust on the outside and a tender interior. While something like a falafel doesn’t need extra starch on the outside to develop a crispy shell, meatballs do. I breaded the outside of my meatballs with a panko and fine bread crumb mixture, and the results were incredible. The meatballs had a crackling crust yet retained plenty of moisture. It was, frankly, one of the juiciest meatballs I’ve ever had.  

Here's how to recreate it:

1. Make your meatball mix

Deep-fried meatballs can be made with any recipe, so I suggest you use your favorite. That said, it’s helpful for the breading step if the mixture has an egg in it, so if you can add an egg to your recipe, great, but it isn't essential. Raw meat is usually sticky enough anyway. Once you've made the mix, roll the meatballs and place them on a foil-lined sheet tray.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Coat them in crumbs

In a bowl, add an equal-parts mixture of panko and fine breadcrumbs. I used store bought Kikkoman panko and Progresso breadcrumbs. If you’re feeling inspired, add a spoonful of grated parmesan to the mix. (I only had shredded, but I managed.) Thoroughly roll each meatball in the breading mixture and return it to the sheet tray.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

3. Fry ‘em up

Depending on how big your meatballs are, add enough neutral oil to a pot to cover them. Bring the oil up to 350°F. Use a deep frying thermometer or candy thermometer to monitor the temperature. Ideally, you’ll keep it around 335°F to 350°F. This frying range will ensure the meatballs cook through to the center without over-browning. Fry the meatballs for three to five minutes, depending on the size of the meatballs. Use a probe thermometer to test the internal temperature if you’re unsure about doneness. 

If you’ve ever experienced the sadness of dry meatballs, deep frying is the remedy. I’ve never had a juicier meatball, and the initial crunch creates a swoon-worthy textural juxtaposition. My meatballs were two inches in diameter—perhaps a tad large. If you want them any bigger than that, I’d recommend breading and baking them on a wire rack over a sheet tray for 15 minutes at 400°F before frying to ensure they cook through. That way when you get to deep frying them you can focus on forming a nice crust and trust they’ll be safe to eat.

(Also, because I know you’re wondering, air frying them is just okay. They'll develop a subtle crust—and again, meatballs are always flawless—but a deep fry just hits different.)

Take the guess-work out of deep frying with these tools:

• Candy Thermometer with Pot Clip

• ThermoPro Digital Meat Thermometer

• Hamilton Beach Electric Deep Fryer

Deep-fried Meatball Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 slice of sandwich bread, toasted

• 2 tablespoons of grated onion (juice included)

• 2 tablespoons milk

• 8 ounces ground beef

• 8 ounces ground pork

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ teaspoon garlic powder

• 2 teaspoons soy sauce

• 3 dashes worcestershire sauce

• 1 egg

• ½ cup panko

• ½ cup breadcrumbs 

• 2 tablespoons grated parmesan

• Neutral oil for deep frying

1. Crumble the slice of toast into a medium mixing bowl. You want small pieces; about the size of a pea or smaller. Add the grated onion and juice, and the milk. Stir to moisten the bread. Feel free to add a splash more milk if there are any remaining dry hunks of bread. Add the beef, pork, salt, seasonings, sauces, and the egg. Mix until combined. 

2. Divide and roll the mixture into balls (the size is up to you). Place them on a foil-lined sheet tray. 

3. Combine the panko, breadcrumbs, and cheese in a small bowl. Roll each meatball in the breading until well-coated. Replace them on the sheet tray. 

4. Add enough oil to a pot to cover a meatball, about two inches of oil. Heat the oil to 350°F and deep fry a couple meatballs at a time for 3 to 5 minutes, or until well browned and the center registers a safe temperature (usually 160°F) for your mixture. Cool the meatballs for about five minutes on a wire rack before serving with your favorite sauce and a dusting of grated parm. 

Woot has a liquidation sale for tech products happening right now, and their television and projectors section has some good discounts on last year's Samsung OLED and QLED 4K TV models. You can find them going up to 48% off at Woot right now.

The deal runs until May 9, 2024, or until the TVs sell out. Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S. If you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. Here are the best TVs on sale.

The Samsung 65-inch S95C OLED TV is 46% off

Samsung 65-Inch S95C OLED TV

Smart TV w/Dolby Atmos, Object Tracking Sound+, Q Symphony, Motion Xcelerator Turbo Pro, Gaming Hub.

$1,777.99 at Woot

$3,297.99 Save $1,520.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,777.99 at Woot

$3,297.99 Save $1,520.00

The 65-inch Samsung S95C OLED TV was released about a year ago, when Samsung released what was then its latest OLED 4K TV. PCMag gave it an "outstanding" review because of its bright display despite being an OLED, great colors, low input lag, and support for AirPlay 2 and voice assistants Alexa and Bixby (Samsung's equivalent). Right now, you can get the 65-inch Samsung OLED 4K S95C for $1,777.99 (originally $3,297.99) or the 77-inch for 39% off. This TV was a bit cheaper when Woot had a Samsung TV sale last month, but it is the cheapest you can find from a reputable store at the moment, with Walmart being the runner-up.

The Samsung QLED Q80C Series is 48% off

Samsung QLED 4K Q80C Series

Dolby Atmos Object Tracking Sound Lite, Direct Full Array, Q-Symphony 3.0, Gaming Hub, Smart TV.

$1,727.99 at Woot

$3,297.99 Save $1,570.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,727.99 at Woot

$3,297.99 Save $1,570.00

If you're looking for a good deal on an 85-inch QLED TV, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better deal than the Samsung QLED 4K Q80C Series for $1,727.99 (originally $3,297.99). You won't find the same mini-LED backlighting screen technology that you'll find in other high-end Samsung TVs, giving you some limitations on your viewing angles—however, you also won't find those TVs 48% off. At its current price, the QLED technology and 85-inch size give you great value for your money for those looking for bright and colorful 4K images.

The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV is 43% off

Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV

Dolby Atmos, Object Tracking Sound+, Anti-Glare, Gaming Hub, Q-Symphony, Alexa Built-in.

$1,887.99 at Woot

$329,799.00 Save $327,911.01

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,887.99 at Woot

$329,799.00 Save $327,911.01

The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV is a premium 4K mini LED TV on paper without the price tag. It offers one of the best HDR brightness of 2023, great off-angle viewing, strong picture performance, 4 HDMI 2.1 ports, and a rechargeable remote. It was one of the best QLED TV's last year, according to Tom's Guide. You can get it starting at $1,887.99 (originally $3,297.99) for the 75-inch size.

Advertisements—sometimes prompts to do something that would financially benefit Microsoft and sometimes actual paid advertisements—are showing up all over Windows 11. Start menu ads are rolling out to all users this month, taking the shape of "Recommended" applications you haven't installed. Ads also briefly showed up in File Explorer, though this was apparently unintentional. And there have long been calls to action on the lock screen and in the settings app. It's a mess.

We've told you how to manually turn off all of Microsoft's ads in Windows 11, but it's a lot of digging around in the settings. If you'd rather not do that, an app called OFGB can do it for you. This free and open source application can quickly change various registry settings to disable those ads—all you have to do is click a few checkboxes.

To get started, simply download the latest release from Github. There are two versions—one tiny one that will only work if you've already installed .NET 8.0 and another massive one that has .NET bundled. Use whichever sounds easier to you.

Open the application and you'll see a bunch of checkboxes allowing you to disable different features. This includes the infamous ads in the File Explorer, the ads on the lock screen, the "Suggested content" in the Settings app, the general tips and tricks that pop up while you're using Windows, the Windows "Welcome Experience," the optional tracking tool that enables "more personal" ads, the "Tailored Experience" feature that tracks your website browsing to show product recommendations, and the "recommended" ads that show up in the start menu.

It's honestly a lot of stuff to have to disable just to get a clean operating system, but with this application, at least it's all in one place. And hey: It's easier than wiping your computer just to install an actually clean version of Windows 11, so that's a plus.

When it comes to OLED TVs, LG's C series has been near the top of the pack for years. The 2023 model was no different, with PCMag giving it an "outstanding" review. And right now, the LG C3 65-Inch Evo OLED TV is on sale for $1,446.99 (originally $2,499.99) after a 42% discount.

The TV is new, not refurbished, and only available in the 65-inch size. The deal runs until May 10 or until the TVs run out. Remember, Woot only ships to the 48 contiguous states in the U.S. If you have Amazon Prime, you get free shipping; otherwise, it’ll be $6 to ship. 

LG C3 65-Inch Evo OLED TV

4K Processor Smart Flat Screen TV for Gaming with Magic Remote AI-Powered, 2023 with Alexa Built-in.

$1,446.99 at Woot

$2,499.99 Save $1,053.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,446.99 at Woot

$2,499.99 Save $1,053.00

What makes the C3 Evo different from other OLEDs and its predecessors is how much brighter it gets than the competition, up to 651 nits. Its color performance is also better than its predecessor. Gamers should appreciate the under 1 ms input lag once the TV’s Game Optimizer feature is on, and with a 120 Hz refresh rate, games will look smooth. The TV has 4K 3,840 by 2,160 resolution, four HDMI ports, and hands-free Amazon Alexa voice assistant compatibility through the TV's microphones.

According to price-checking tools, the 65-inch LG C3 Evo OLED TV didn't drop in price until February of this year. Although this isn't the lowest price this TV has it, it is only a few dollars away from it. At the time of this writing, the next cheapest place to get the C3 Evo is Amazon, which sells it for $1,596.99.

The iPad is a product equally beloved and criticized: It has its devoted fans, who love it as it is, and use it for everything from work, passion projects, and entertainment. But it also has detractors, mostly those who see it as a limited experience thanks to an underpowered OS.

While Apple rarely seems to cater to the whims of its critics, it has made some iterative changes to the iPad over the years: iPadOS used to be an undeniably "tablet" experience, before Apple revamped its multitasking features, not once, but twice. Throw in mouse and trackpad support, and the iPad can be used as a computer replacement.

Apple hasn't made many fundamental changes to the overall design of the iPad in some time: The design of the Pro models remains almost identical to the ones released back in 2018, minus the 12.9-inch Pro's mini-LED display. This year, however, could mark some massive changes in the iPad lineup, across both hardware to software.

Apple's new iPads

iPad rumors have been in circulation for months now, but as we approach Apple's big iPad event next week, the claims are only getting more serious.

Case in point, a new Bloomberg report from noted Apple reporter Mark Gurman presents the highlights of Apple's iPad presentation: The star of the show is the iPad Pro. Apple is moving on from the mini-LED display on the 12.9-inch Pro (as well as the standard LCD on the 11-inch Pro) in favor of OLED. It's the first time Apple has used this display tech in an iPad before, but better late than never: On OLED displays, each pixel can be lit up individually, which means they can be completely shut off for dark scenes. The contrast is incomparable to LCD, which is lit by one solid backlight, and improved over mini-LED: The latter uses many dimming zones to boost contrast, but comes with the side effect of light bloom, or white zones in the dark areas around an image.

In addition to the display upgrades, the rumors suggest these iPads could be the first to get Apple's upcoming M4 chip, which may power many of Apple's upcoming AI features. (At least, the ones not outsourced to OpenAI or Google.) Perhaps the 2024 iPad Pro will usher in Apple's long-awaited AI strategy. We'll just have to see.

While OLED iPads will certainly make headlines, the iPad Air is also getting an upgrade: Gurman expects Apple to unveil a new 12.9-inch version of the Air, for those who want a larger iPad without paying Pro prices. The standard 10.9-inch will also be available for anyone who likes the traditional form factor of the Air, and both are expected to come with Apple's M2 chip. So, not the tablets to get for AI or the best contrast, but probably the best tablets for most people to consider.

Some new accessories for your new iPad

Of course, what's an iPad without some additional (expensive) accessories? Gurman expects Apple to unveil new versions of both the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard. The new Pencil will come with haptic feedback, which I'm all for: Those are the tiny vibrations you feel in certain pieces of tech, which offers some physical feedback whenever completing an action. It's not clear how Apple plans to implement that into the new Pencil, but it'd be cool if they came into play when drawing, erasing, or selecting items on-screen.

The new Magic Keyboard also sounds like a step up: It will reportedly use more durable materials, like aluminum, and will make the iPad "look more laptop-like." While I'm a fan of the current Magic Keyboard, it does feel quite fragile compared to other Apple products. There are other areas I'd like to see improvements as well: The main keyboard is nice, but I hope Apple increases the size of the trackpad and adds a row of function keys. Honestly, if all they did was add brightness and volume controls to the keyboard, I'd be set.

The iPad is becoming a bit more like a computer

People have wanted to replace their Macs and PCs with iPads since the tablet's launch in 2010. And although we've come a long way since that initial design, there's no denying an iPad simply can't do everything a traditional computer can. Sure, you can now have up to four windows on your iPhone running at once, and the Magic Keyboard lets you interact with your tablet much like a laptop, but you will continue to run into roadblocks and jump through painful workarounds to accomplish tasks that would be simple on a Mac.

There are many such differences Apple still needs to iron out, but one big one comes down to apps. Yes, the App Store is full of apps you can discover and download, but it isn't the same experience as a computer: On a Mac or PC, you can find a fun app or utility on the web, install it, and be on your way. On iPadOS, if Apple didn't approve the app on the App Store, you're not running it.

That's changing this year, at least in Europe: Apple confirmed Thursday it will allow app developers to sell their apps through third-party app stores and through websites, following the same rules the company rolled out for iPhones as of iOS 17.5. While app developers will still need to play by Apple's rules and give a percentage of their revenue to the company (this isn't a way to skirt Apple's fees, after all), it gives users more options for where they can download their apps. It means iPhones feel more like Androids, and iPads feels more like computers: If you see an app online, and you want to install it directly on your iPad, you can.

Of course, the only reason Apple is doing this is because the European Commission is forcing them to. The E.U. sees the iPhone and the iPad as "gatekeeping technologies," and, as such, must open up their platforms to allow for more competition. Unless we see similar legislation passed in the U.S., it's unlikely we'll get sideloading on iPads anytime soon.

That said, this is a reality for European iPad owners: While there are still plenty of small advantages computers still have over iPads, this change is another small step towards a future where Apple's tablet can be most people's all-in-one device.

New iPads are always fun, but arguably the best part of a product release is watching prices on older devices shrink. If you want a new iPad, but don't want to pay new iPad prices, keep an eye on the prices for these iPads post-Apple event:

• 12.9-inch M2 iPad Pro (renewed)

• 11-inch M2 iPad Pro (renewed)

• iPad Air (5th generation)

Microsoft is investigating reports of the latest April Windows 11 update breaking some VPN apps for users. The update, titled KB5036893, introduced several improvements to Windows 11—unfortunately it also seems to have broken VPN apps that run off a TPM-backed certificate.

The exact issue users are running into seems to be with the VPN being unable to find the certificate that it needs to be used with the Extensible Authentication Protocol, Reddit User Flo-TPG explains. Now that Microsoft has confirmed it knows about the issue and is investigating it, we’ll hopefully have a fix before too long.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help those who might be trying to use a VPN with Windows 11 currently. If you have installed update KB5036893, then the only real option you have is to uninstall it and downgrade to the previous Windows 11 version.

How to uninstall a Windows 11 update

If you ever have any issues with a new Windows 11 update, you can always roll back to the previous version thanks to a handy built-in system Microsoft has included in the operating system.

1. First, open the Settings menu on your Windows 11 PC.

2. Navigate to Windows Update.

3. Now click Update History.

4. Scroll all the way to the bottom and select Uninstall Updates.

5. Find the update that you need to uninstall—in this case, you’ll want to look for update KB5036893—and click Uninstall, then complete the process.

Once the update finishes uninstalling, your system will restart, and you’ll launch back on the older version of Windows 11. Keep in mind that downgrading from some of the larger updates for Windows 11 may remove some features from your operating system.

Vitamin D is hugely important to your health, and I don’t just mean bone health. Humans need vitamin D for immune function, cell growth and repair, and many other things. We get vitamin D from sunlight and from food, so let’s take a look at which foods have the most vitamin D.

You don’t have to get all of your vitamin D from food

Before I discuss food sources, I do want to address the issue of where vitamin D comes from in the first place. The primary sources are sunlight and food (and supplements), so if you get plenty of sun, you don’t need to worry about meeting your needs through food, and vice versa. 

How much sun do you need to get enough vitamin D? That depends on your latitude on the Earth and how dark or light your skin is. For a benchmark, consider this study that compared sun exposure in Miami and Boston. In Miami in the summer, it only takes a few minutes for a person with a medium skin tone (the kind that tans easily but is still capable of sunburn) to get their vitamin D for the day. In Boston in the winter, bundled up, that same person might take two hours to get the same amount of vitamin D.

Health professionals generally agree that if you aren’t sure if you’re getting enough vitamin D from food and the sun, to just take a supplement. That’s going to be safer than trying to meet all your needs through sunlight, since the vitamin-converting rays of the sun are the same rays that can potentially contribute to skin cancer.

Getting more vitamin D through food is also an option—so let’s dig in.

How much vitamin D do you need in food each day? 

There isn’t a ton of agreement on how much vitamin D we need, but the U.S. National Institutes of Health have decided that 600 IU (international units) is enough for pretty much everyone aged 1 to 70. If you’re older than 70, you should get 800 IU.

The daily value on nutrition labels is based on a target of 800 IU (the recommendation for elderly folks) so most of us can actually get away with just 75% of the daily value, instead of making sure we hit 100%. 

Those international units exist because there are different forms of vitamin D found in food, and some have a stronger effect on the body than others. In general, 600 IU is equivalent to 15 micrograms of vitamin D, but using IU means you don’t have to keep track of which type of the vitamin is present in food. 

Oh, and the recommendations of 600 or 800 IU assume that you are getting minimal sun exposure—they’re for the bundled-up person in Boston, not the sunbather in Miami.

Easy ways to add vitamin D to your diet

Eat more fatty fish

Fish carry tons of vitamin D in their fat, so fatty fish like trout and salmon tend to be great sources of the vitamin. 

If you'll allow me a small rant: Cod liver oil always tops lists of vitamin D sources, as if people are buying cod liver oil and taking spoonfuls of it like in old cartoons. (Maybe people do. If this is you, you can stop reading now.) I am going to proceed with my list as if cod liver oil did not exist. That said, if you really want to get your vitamin D this way, by all means, buy some one Amazon. 

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If you'd rather enjoy eating the fish you're consuming, here’s how much vitamin D is in different types of fish. All of these listings are from the USDA, and indicate the levels in a three-ounce portion of cooked fish.

• Trout (rainbow, farmed): 645 IU

• Salmon (sockeye): 570 IU

• Tuna (light, canned): 229 IU (or 460 IU for a small can)

• Tilapia: 128 IU

• Fish sticks: sadly, only 1 IU

Other animal products that are good sources of vitamin D

Several land animals also make enough vitamin D to be worth considering as a good source of vitamin D. 

• Chicken eggs: 37 IU each (the vitamin D is in the yolk)

• Beef liver: 48 IU in a three-ounce cooked portion

Milk is famously a good source of vitamin D (the carton often says “vitamin D milk”). There is some vitamin D naturally present in the milkfat, so skim milk doesn’t usually have much vitamin D, but whole milk does—and it’s often fortified to bring those levels up even more. 

• Whole milk: 124 IU per cup

• Heavy cream: 19 IU per ounce

Eat more fortified foods

A food is “fortified” with vitamins if those vitamins have been added to the food. A lot of people don’t drink milk, so several similar beverages are sold with vitamin D added. 

• Fortified plant milks: Check the label, but it’s often similar to whole milk. here’s a Silk brand soy milk with 120 IU per cup.

• Fortified orange juice: Check the label, but here’s Simply Orange with 200 IU per cup.

• Fortified cereals: Check the label, but even a sugary cereal like Cinnamon Toast Crunch has 240 IU per serving.

You get the idea. Plant-based foods don’t naturally have much vitamin D, but many common items like these are fortified. Between food, sunlight, and the “I don’t want to think about it” approach of just taking a vitamin D supplement, it shouldn’t be too hard to meet your needs. 

When it comes to high-end robot vacuums, there are a few brands that stand out from the rest. Yeedi and Ecovacs, for example: These companies are consistently innovating new features, increasing battery life and suction power, and improving their companion apps. Here are the best high-end robot vacuum deals available right now.

The Ecovacs Deebot T10 Omni is 50% off

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Like all the devices here, the Deebot T10 Omni is a vacuum and mop robot vacuum with a self-emptying home base that also charges the robot. It has a decent suction power of 5,000 Pa and mops with cold water. There is no auto-mop lifting feature, so you'll have to designate no-mop zones on your app if you don't want your carpet getting wet. The T10 has a camera with AI technology that it uses to avoid and recognize obstacles. You can also use the camera to monitor where the vacuum goes on a live video stream that also has two-way audio. You can get the Deebot T10 Omni for $599.99 (originally $1,199.99), the lowest price yet according to price-checking tools.

The Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni is $500 off

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When the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni Robot Vacuum came out, the 8,000 Pa suction power was top of the line. This one works with carpets since the mop has a clearance of 15mm. The long rubber brushes for mopping leave my floors looking fresh, and it has yet to run out of battery mid-job with a long 200 minutes of run time. I've yet to take the debris out of the 90-day self-emptying home base (I don't use it every day). The mopping is done with two powerful brushes and hot water. The X2 will also dry your floors with hot air. You can get this cleaning machine for $999.99 (originally $1,499.99) after a 33% discount.

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The newest high-end robot vacuum from Yeedi is impressive on paper, and it is already $300 off. The Yeedi M12 PRO+ has a powerful 11,000 Pa suction power, which is the highest suction I've seen in a robot vacuum. It also has a self-emptying dustbin, hot water mopping, self-washing extending mop pads, a tangle-free V-shaped roller brush, and a spot-cleaning feature in case you make a mess in one specific spot of the house. The M12 PRO+ has obstacle avoidance, but it may still try to clean objects it should probably avoid, like food wrappers or napkins. The auto-lift of 9mm means if you have a thicker carpet, you might want to tell your vacuum to work around it, or it will likely get wet. The fact that you can get a robot vacuum of this quality for $799.99 (originally $1,099) after using the $100 on-page coupon is impressive.

You’ve probably heard the advice that running shoes are only good for about 300 to 500 miles, and after that, the cushioning is so broken down that they’re an injury waiting to happen. But that’s not always true, and there are more ways to figure out when to throw out your shoes than just counting the miles.

How do running shoes break down?

When you put in the miles, your shoes undergo wear and tear. The first thing you’ll notice is that the tread on the bottom wears down, but that’s okay; there should be more than enough rubber under your feet to last the lifetime of the shoe.

Another place you’ll see visible wear is on the upper. Maybe you tend to get a hole in the toe box where your big toenail rubs; maybe you run on trails and tend to scuff up the sides. But these scrapes are usually a cosmetic issue, not a functional one. You can patch them up or just run in them despite the holes.

What really matters is the cushioning on the inside. It gets compressed with every step, and the more it gets squished, the less it bounces back. There will come a time in the life of every running shoe when it provides substantially less cushioning than it did when it was new. That’s when it’s arguably time to replace them.

How fast do running shoes break down?

The “300 to 500 miles” rule benefits running companies, since it requires you to replace your shoes while they still might look like new. But it’s true: 300 to 500 miles really is the range where cushioning tends to reach the end of its useful life.

That said, a lot of different factors are at work here besides just mileage—the runner's weight, for instance. If you’re a heavier runner, your shoes will wear out faster. And if you’re a lighter one, you may get more mileage out of your shoes than you’d otherwise expect.

Another factor is how the shoes are made. Some shoes are more durable and will last well beyond 500 miles. Others are light and flimsy to start with, and you might be lucky to break 300. I sometimes buy kids’ running shoes if I can find them in a size that fits me, but they tend to be less sturdy and their cushioning doesn’t last as long.

How long can you wear your old running shoes?

I remember running in the same pair of Nikes for literal years without issue. I bought them around the time that barefoot running and minimalist shoes were all the rage, and in fact I bought them because they had less cushioning than other models—so I figured that if I wanted the least cushioning possible, why would I worry about replacing shoes just because the cushioning was wearing down?

I did eventually get a new pair for other reasons, but the logic is sound: If you don’t need the extra cushioning, and your beat-up shoes are still comfortable, you can keep running in them for as long as they feel good.

On the other hand, not all shoes break down uniformly. I’ve had shoes where one sole starts to feel a bit lumpy or weird, and that can definitely lead to discomfort (or potentially even injury) over time. The most recent models of my favorite Nikes (the Free Run) seem to break down quickly. I've since switched to the Downshifter, a model that fits similarly but has more durable cushioning.

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All of this is to say: just because you can keep running in old shoes doesn’t mean you should. Your experience will vary with the brand of shoe, the age of the shoe, and other factors like how heavy you are and what kind of surfaces you run on.

When do you really need to replace your running shoes?

Runners debate this issue amongst themselves, and they don't always come to the same conclusion as the running shoe companies. For example, see this discussion in a running forum on Reddit. Some people do track their miles, but they learn from experience instead of trusting a number just because they read it on the internet somewhere. One runner says, “Yep, my running shoes become lawn mowing shoes somewhere between 700 and 800 miles.” Another uses a range of 600 to 800 kilometers (roughly 400 to 500 miles). Another gives a more detailed explanation:

Theaveragemaryjanie says: "In fact, I started going off of mileage on some brands because [a gradual pain in the knee] went from it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine to oh-my-god-my-knee-how-long-am-I-out-is-this-serious. After about three scares at near the same mileage I figured it out and now replace 50 miles sooner. I would rather buy one extra pair per year than injure myself."

Others go by feel. "I retire shoes not at a mileage but when they either don’t feel comfy to run in any more or if they fall apart," says Layric. I generally get 1,000 miles at least out of pairs. At this mileage the soles are going to be nowhere near as cushioned as when they were new but I don’t suffer any injuries keeping them going this long. I own about half a dozen pairs and rotate through them."

Rotating through a shoe collection reportedly helps to extend the life of shoes. (Pro tip: if you do this, make sure to track shoe mileage in your running app, because otherwise it will be difficult to remember how much you’ve run in each shoe.)

One redditor, MakeYourMarks, has the receipts: "The fact that you rotate them is certainly a boon to their longevity," they say. "The foam/insulation/support gets compressed from the constant banging and pressure of running. Giving them time to “rest” (fully dry out and re-expand) adds a not-insubstantial amount of life to them. I have found that I get around 500 miles of amazing cushioning out of Hokas when rotating every other day as opposed to only about 350-400 when using every day. That’s at least a 25% increase, and at $100+ for a pair of shoes, the savings add up quickly over time."

You can also combine these approaches, and rotate between an older and a newer pair of shoes. The nice thing about this approach is that you’ll be able to feel the difference between good cushioning and worn-down cushioning just by comparing the two, without having to make a trip to the shoe store. Comparing new and old shoes is my own preferred method.

Just one warning about keeping a stash in the closet: the cushioning in running shoes will break down over time, even if you haven’t run in them, so very old shoes may have a shorter lifespan from the start.

There are plenty of reasons to buy shoes at your local running store instead of online or at a big box store, including a more knowledgeable staff and the fact that you’re supporting your local running community. But another biggie is the fact that many will take returns even after you’ve gone for a few runs in your shoes.

In case you don’t have a local store with this policy, it’s good to know that some larger brands and online stores will also take returns of lightly-worn shoes. Fleet Feet and Running Warehouse are among the bigger stores that offer this perk; some online running shoe stores will include it as part of a membership (like Roadrunner). But several running shoe brands offer a no-questions-asked return policy themselves, so if you know that you love (say) Nikes, you can buy from the brand directly.

Do not feel bad about taking advantage of this policy. The whole idea is that you can trust your body to tell you whether the shoes are working, rather than stressing during a brief try-on about whether you think these shoes will work for you. If you can't help but feel guilty, you can make it up by buying your next new pair of shoes from the same place. They do it because they're trying to win you as a loyal customer.

Adidas asks for shoes to be unworn for most returns, but it has a separate policy for its "performance" running shoes, which include all its popular running shoes, from the $65 Runfalcon on up.

Altra prominently advertises "30 day trial runs, guaranteed." It ships a return label with your shoes and allows returns "for any reason" during those 30 days.

Brooks will accept returns within 90 days, even if you’ve run in the shoes: "Run in it, sweat in it, inside, outside, in the rain - if it doesn’t perform the way it should, send it back."

Hoka has a 30-day return policy (60 days for members), even if you've worn the shoes. "Try them out, that's what our 30-day Guarantee is all about."

Newton accepts returns within 30 days "for any reason with as much or as little wear and tear on them" as they happen to have.

Nike will let you return shoes, even if they’ve been worn, within 60 days of purchase. It specifically says you can return shoes, including custom sneakers, "for any reason" within that time period. There are exceptions, including items purchased at Nike Clearance stores.

Please note that policies can change, and that they often vary by country. Customer service staff can sometimes help you out even if you fall outside the official policy, but don't count on it. Still, if you’ve bought shoes, run in them, and weren’t happy, it can’t hurt to ask.

Most of us are likely to accept most computer settings as they are without varying too much from the default configuration that comes out of the box—but sometimes, a little digging can help you get more out of your hardware. That's certainly true when it comes to monitor settings: This depends on the monitor you've got, of course, but you may have more options to play around with than you thought. If you're going to be spending a lot of time staring at your screen, it's important to get it set up in the best way for you.

Whether you're looking to make the most of the display you've got, or you're simply baffled by some of the options you've come across, we'll guide you through the key monitor settings you need to know about—both those you'll find in Windows and macOS, and those available on your actual monitor.

Windows and macOS

You can find your monitor settings in Windows by going to Settings from the Start menu, then choosing System and Display. You get the fundamentals here: first and foremost, the Display resolution, which is simply the number of pixels on show. Look for the option marked Recommended in the drop down list, as this will be the native resolution for your monitor—the one where text and graphics look the sharpest.

If you're using a high-end, high-resolution monitor, using the native resolution can make Windows text and menus seem tiny, which is where Scale comes in. Use this to scale up on-screen elements without affecting the resolution. If your monitor supports the feature, you can also choose between Landscape and Portrait for the Display orientation, enabling you to use your monitor vertically if needed.

Display settings on Windows. Credit: Lifehacker

Most monitors now support a High Dynamic Range or HDR mode, which you can enable by clicking Use HDR. HDR can work wonders in terms of contrast and color range—it essentially means details in very dark and very light areas of the screen are kept visible and not lost. Imagine a person standing with strong sunlight behind them: HDR would mean that person wouldn't just be a black shadow.

Head to the Advanced display screen and you're able to set the refresh rate, if your monitor supports multiple refresh rates: This is a key monitor spec, measured in Hertz (Hz), that tells you how often per second the display is refreshing itself. A higher refresh rate typically means smoother playback for games and movies, because you're seeing more frames per second.

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Over on macOS, you're able to get to your monitor settings by going to the Apple menu and choosing System Settings and then Displays. As on Windows, you'll see a choice of resolutions, represented in pixels—the native resolution for the monitor will be labeled as Default, and that should give you the best experience.

Display settings on macOS. Credit: Lifehacker

Then there's Color profile, which essentially manages how colors and contrast are handled by the monitor (there are more ways to do this thank you might think). This setting is of most use for creative professionals who need full color accuracy in their work—most of the rest of us won't need to change this setting, but you can certainly experiment with what's available.

The other settings here match those that we've previously covered for Windows. You're able to specify a refresh rate (how quickly the screen refreshes each second), and enable HDR (for better management of color and contrast extremes). Finally, Rotation lets you turn your monitor into a portrait or landscape orientation, if your monitor supports it.

On-board settings

That's the Windows and macOS settings, but you may also find a bunch of options available on your monitor. Obviously this will vary from monitor to monitor, so you might need to check on the web to see what exactly your model is capable of and how you get to the settings (it's usually done via buttons on the monitor itself).

Besides the basics of brightness and contrast, something you'll often see are presets, which will have a variety of names like Movie or Gaming: These presets will adjust settings like contrast, color saturation, and sharpness all together to work best for certain scenarios. The scenario should be made clear by the preset name, but you can always look it up if you need to.

On-board presets on a BenQ monitor. Credit: Lifehacker

There's nothing wrong with the standard preset that's enabled by default, by the way—this will work well for most use cases. However, if you're doing something specific, you may get better results with a preset. You can always tweak presets further by adjusting the individual settings for color and contrast yourself, if needed.

One of the individual settings you'll see on some monitors is Gamma, which controls how smoothly black transitions into white, and affects the balance between the lightest and the darkest areas of the frame. There might also be a Color temperature setting, which affects how 'warm' or 'cold' colors look on screen.

Gaming monitors will often have something called an Overdrive feature (though it might have a different name). This boosts the monitor's ability to transition between colors, and it can reduce 'ghosting' (or color trails) in fast-paced games with a lot of motion. It can also cause other noticeable artifacts though, so it's something that's best set on a game-by-game basis, depending on your personal preference.

In-game settings for Red Dead Redemption 2. Credit: Lifehacker

You might also see a mention of Nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync, features that sync the monitor refresh rate to the number of frames being outputted every second by your graphics card: With this enabled, you should see less stuttering and screen tearing (where two halves of a frame don't match up). It has a variety of other names depending on the monitor, so look out for something mentioning "sync" or "variable refresh rate."

Finally, don't neglect the settings inside your apps and especially your games. Most games will come with a stack of options you can adjust to control the monitor resolution, refresh rate, latency (the delay between your input and the screen response), and frame sync settings—these will vary between games and between monitors, but they should be labeled in a way that makes them easy to understand.

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If you own a home, you’ve probably at least contemplated making major, dramatic changes to it; having control over your shelter is important psychologically, and one way we exert that control is by changing it to better meet our needs. And we increasingly treat our homes as reflections of our emotional and mental state, often turning to renovation projects when we feel stuck or unhappy in other areas of our lives (for better or for worse).

We usually discuss home renovation projects in terms of return on investment (ROI) or the practical impact the change will have on our daily lives and our families. But there’s a crucial aspect of home remodeling that we should prioritize more: happiness. How happy will that home renovation project make you? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has quantified this to some extent with their “Joy Score,” which asks homeowners to rate how happy a home renovation has made them. Combined with some other factors, it’s possible to come up with a list of the home renovation projects that will make you the happiest—and they’re not always the most expensive or ambitious.

Happiness-inducing indoor projects

Unsurprisingly, one of the key factors in any home renovation project is how well the end result meets the need that inspired it. If your kitchen is barely functional before the renovation and does everything you need after, you’re probably going to be pretty happy with the project (assuming no soul-killing problems like massive cost overruns or your contractor dropping an uber-expensive countertop just inches away from installation).

But the renovation projects that will make you happiest in the house are often the simplest. All of these renovations received a perfect Joy Score of 10, for example:

• Painting. Painting the whole interior of your home or even just one room can be very, very satisfying. There’s some evidence that color has an explicit impact on your mental state, and many people subjectively experience a boost in mood with the right paint colors. Plus, painting is like literally erasing mistakes. Throw in the relatively low cost, speed, and ease of this project and the happiness factor is obvious.

• Home office addition. This is all about solving problems. If you’re working from home and find yourself balancing your laptop on your knees in the bathroom, creating a dedicated office space can make you feel like you’re a professional.

• New or refinished wood floors. Like paint on the walls, that new floor shine feels like shedding the mistakes of the past (like the time you dragged the couch to a new spot and left deep gouges in your floor). Plus the durability of the final result—an improvement that will last years—is very satisfying.

• Closet renovation. Our closets are like a personal Portrait of Dorian Gray—the public-facing parts of our home might be neat and tidy while our closets are overflowing nightmares. Organizing always feels good, so it’s little wonder that creating order out of chaos in our closets makes us happy.

• Attic conversion. Conquering an area of your house currently ruled by spiders is always going to make you feel better. Not only do you turn a dark and slightly dangerous place (where you can easily misstep and fall through the ceiling) into a functional and useful space, you gain square footage and increase your home’s value.

• New insulation. This might be a surprising one, but not if you think about it: Not only does new or upgraded insulation improve your home’s energy efficiency, which feels good, it also makes your home more comfortable—which makes people want to spend more time there.

Happiness-inducing outdoor projects

Home renovations outside the house hit a little different, but access to outdoor spaces can have a huge positive impact on your overall happiness, so it’s not surprising that some of these projects score really high on the joy scale:

• In-ground pool. A pool makes people want to spend more time in their homes, and gives them a higher sense of enjoyment of the property. Not only can you cool off and get some good exercise in a pool, you can also throw some pretty epic parties around one.

• Landscape lighting. Another perfect Joy Score involves adding light to your outdoor spaces. Solid lighting design outside can turn a dark, foreboding yard into a beautiful spot you want to spend time in. It also increases a sense of security, since you can actually see what’s going on. Plus, it doesn’t have to be a complicated project—some solar lights, used thoughtfully, is all you need.

• New patio or deck. Like the pool, a new patio area or deck makes people want to use their outdoor spaces more, because they provide comfortable areas to relax. A new patio or deck turns a blank canvas into an entertaining space or a spot for decompression, cocktails, and enjoying the fresh air.

• Fire feature. Fire can have a positive psychological impact—it can be relaxing and meditative. It manages a Joy Score of 9.7 because it makes our outdoor spaces more inviting, gives them more “personality,” and increases the amount of time you can enjoy your yard, patio, or deck because it allows us to use those spaces even when it’s a little colder than we’d like.

Take a French pastry that’s been painstakingly shaped; flawless in its simplicity—and then stuff it with an American sugar-and -utter bomb. The TikTok viral cookie croissant feels slightly blasphemous at first glance, but that’s part of the fun of it. What’s even more fun is that it’s a great way to use past-prime store bought croissants. Here’s my favorite way to make them (and then make them even better). 

This instance of pastry profanity is actually credited to have started at a French bakery, Maison Louvard. It’s not even too off-brand for French croissant treatment in general—take the almond croissant, for example, which is stuffed with a flavorful almond batter and baked to sweet, caramelized perfection. Stuffing sweet dough or batter into the center of a second-rate packaged croissant and baking it again creates a marriage of crisp, toasted pastry and soft—or even gooey—cookie. It only requires two ingredients and about 12 minutes in the oven. 

How to make a "Crookie” at home

I choose the path of least resistance. Instead of making my own cookie dough, I bought one of those sausages of Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

1. Split a store bought, packaged croissant (those need improving anyway), and stuff it with about a tablespoon of cookie dough, flattened. I used mini croissants, so if you have full-sized ones you may want to use more cookie dough.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Put the “lid” back on and secure another flattened spoonful of dough on top. Bake the whole monstrosity in a 350°F oven for about 12 minutes. Alternatively, you can use an air fryer set to “air fry” at 325°F for about eight minutes. 

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Keep the grocery list simple:

• Petite Butter Croissants 12-count

• Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough

Tips to improve your cookie croissant

My biggest problem with this preparation is that it’s hard to bake the cookie center all the way through. Any cookie dough that doesn’t bloom out to the surface stays gooey. It’s so gooey, actually, it’s basically liquid. Most packaged cookie dough is safe to consume raw (it’ll say so on the wrapper if it is), so safety isn’t an issue, but personally, I like cooked cookies. 

Actually cook the cookie dough

If you’re in the same cooked-cookie-boat with me, it’s a simple fix: Proceed to press cookie dough onto the cut-side of the split croissant’s bottom half, and onto the exterior of the top half, just like before. This time, don’t stack the layers. Instead, place the two halves onto a sheet tray, cookie-side up, and bake them. Use the same temperature, and the same amount of time. Since the cookie dough is exposed, they’ll bake through completely. Stack the halves once the croissant comes out of the oven, and enjoy.

Why stop with the basics?

Cookie dough alone is good, but I’m in the business of great, dammit. Croissants are a versatile buttery dough, so anything pairs well with them. Cookies are also, oddly, rather flexible. Anything you’d stir into your cookie dough can be tucked it into your crookie. Anything. You can switch up the cookie dough flavor too. Chocolate chip cookie dough pairs well with crispy bacon crumbles, pretzels, potato chips, or corn flakes. Sugar cookie dough is a friend to granola, cashews, or rosemary. My favorite pairing today was adding a long slice of banana along with Reese’s Pieces cookie dough. With just a little experimentation, you’ll have your next favorite snack ready in less than 15 minutes. 

Sometimes it feels like privacy, as a concept, has vanished from the world. Advertisers certainly seem to know everything about you, serving up frighteningly accurate ads that make you think your phone’s microphone has been turned on and marketers are actively listening to your every mumble.

They’re not—yet. But they are engaged in something called “data mining,” which is the process of collecting enormous amounts of anonymous data from your every connected activity and then analyzing that data to infiltrate your life with advertisements and other influences. And it’s not just corporate America—criminals can mine your data in order to rip you off.

If that bugs you—and it should—you can take some steps to minimize data mining in your life. You can’t completely escape it unless you plan to live off-grid with zero Internet connection, but you can reduce your exposure. After all, it’s your data, you’re not being compensated for it, and it’s creepy that some anonymous marketing team knows you’re really into RPGs and craft beer.

Read those EULAs

One of the biggest vectors for mining your data is your smartphone, especially the apps you’ve installed on it. Every time you install an app you agree to its terms—the end user license agreement (EULA) and other requirements.

A first line of defense against data mining is to take the time to review those EULAs. You can’t negotiate, but if you see you’re being asked for blanket permission to send data back to the mothership, you might at least look for an alternative. The key warning signs that the app is just a data-mining vessel are granting permission to monitor your Internet activity, to explicitly collect personal information, or to use your computer or device for their own purposes. If you see anything that gives you pause, think twice before agreeing.

Check settings

When you install an app on your device, you probably click through a series of permissions that grant that app access to everything it needs to gather data about you. This is a data-mining goldmine.

A few years ago, for example, an investigation found that about 5,400 apps were siphoning data from just one person’s smartphone—1.5 gigs of data in all. And back in 2017, an app maker called Alphonso was caught tracking what people were watching on TV by activating the microphone on their smartphones.

If an app requires a lot of unnecessary permissions—does a game really need access to your microphone, location, and camera?—you should assume it’s more of a data-mining app than anything else. Your next line of defense: Stop installing garbage free apps and spend that dollar. Every app wants to make money from you, and if you’re not paying up front, you’re paying in some other way, most likely by having your data stripmined.

Be boring on social

Social media is very obviously a dumpster fire when it comes to privacy. You’re literally posting a photo of you at the store with the hashtag #LiveToShop, so you shouldn’t be surprised when that store’s ads start popping up all over your life.

If you’re concerned about data mining, you can take a few simple steps to reduce the access that data miners have to your social media:

• Set your profile to private. If your main goal on social media is to connect with friends or colleagues, restrict the reach of your posts to just those folks.

• Be a snob. Don’t accept every request you receive to connect—if you don’t know that person, they don’t need to be let in to your inner circle.

• Discretion. Don’t blast your travel plans, spending habits, or product reviews out into the universe.

Using social media compromises your privacy, but if you’re mindful of the information data miners want, you can at least refuse to make it easy.

Log out

When you log into platforms like Google or Facebook, that platform can pretty easily track what you’re doing. And as long as you’re signed in, that ability persists—even if you leave the site. These companies are really data mining companies, and they have perfected the art of following you around.

It’s a pain in the butt, but logging out of those services when you’re not actively using them (and clearing cookies and browsing history regularly) can slow down the vacuuming of data. It’s inconvenient to do so by design, but it has a real impact on how much information is being mined from your online activities.

Avoid memes

Data mining isn’t just about advertisers selling your stuff. It can also be weaponized by scammers to get personal info they can use to rob you blind, steal your identity, or steal your identity and then rob you blind.

One easy way they can do this is to just wait for you to respond to a phishing meme. These memes look like innocent fun quizzes where you supply some seemingly innocuous bits of personal information and receive a chuckle in response. Common examples include posting your “porn name” (a combination of common security question answers like your middle name or the model of your first car or something similar) or using the last digits of your phone number to do some math magic.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to avoid data mining via phishing memes: Ignore the memes. Your life will actually be incrementally better anyway.

Tech solutions

One of the most effective ways to cut down your exposure to data mining requires a bit more effort. Various privacy tools exist that can really stem the flow of your data to the unappeasable black hole of marketing:

• VPNs. Virtual Private Networks are useful for privacy because they obscure your location and IP address, which makes it a lot harder for data miners to collate the data they get. Since your data appears to come from a wide range of random locations, it’s impossible to build a coherent profile of your preferences and habits. Installing a VPN on your computer, phone, and devices will go a long way towards cutting off the flow of private information.

• Tor. The Tor Browser routes your web surfing traffic through many encrypted nodes, making it basically impossible to track your travels on the Internet. If you really want to go dark, combine Tor with a VPN and you’ll be practically invisible. If you’re not ready to use Tor as your everyday browser, use a privacy-focused browser like DuckDuckGo or Brave, or at least adjust the privacy settings in your browser to make it as secure as possible.

• Ad blockers. Almost every single website you visit tracks your activities and gathers data about you. While using a privacy browser is an effective way to stifle that, ad-blocking plugins can go the extra mile by denying intrusive access to your browsing experience altogether.

Once you decide on a decluttering method to clean out your home, the real work begins. Almost every popular technique out there requires you to group your items into three or four categories: Keep, throw, donate, and possibly, sell. Putting each item in its correct pile is not as easy as the step-by-step rules make it seem, but there’s a trick called the five-second rule that you can use to keep the process efficient. 

What is the five-second rule?

The five-second rule is a widely-adaptable technique from organizational coach Mel Robbins, who advocates for it in her books. According to Robbins, you should make major decisions in under five seconds, actually counting down five, four, three, two, one. Your brain will know that at the end of that countdown, it has to make a choice; there’s a sense of urgency to it. This will push you to make quick, efficient decisions. I do this all the time, like when I have to rip off a bandage or open one of those popping cans of biscuits (which really freaks me out). There’s just something about the countdown that amps you up to do the thing you don’t want to do or are deliberating about. 

How does the five-second rule apply in decluttering?

Adapting the five-second rule for decluttering is a big tip that floats around minimalist spaces online. You can use it to spur yourself to start cleaning if you’re feeling overwhelmed, but most often, it’s applied to the moments you spend debating internally about whether or not something should be kept or tossed out. 

The less time you give yourself to make the choice, the better off you’ll be. You can rationalize keeping anything if you give yourself long enough to do it, but the goal of decluttering is to minimize the amount of stuff you have and organize the stuff that’s leftover, not make a bunch of excuses for why you can’t downsize. When you pick something up in the process of decluttering, you usually know instinctively if you really need it. Holding it and considering it for too long doesn’t take away from what you already know to be true so much as it gives you time to come up with reasons the thing should be kept. Commit to sorting everything you touch into a keep or get-rid-of pile as soon as you pick it up and in no more than five seconds, employing the countdown if you have to in a tough moment. 

For anything that really makes you struggle and can’t be so easily sorted in five seconds, follow the Minimalists’ 20/20 rule, asking yourself whether the thing you’re debating keeping could be replaced for under $20 and in under 20 minutes in the unlikely event you ever need it again. If you answer those questions with a yes, throw it out.

Training yourself to be quick and decisive in these instances will help you build the habit of parting with things easily and not assigning false sentimentality or need to items that simply have no business sticking around. 

Credit card points and airline miles are strange aspects of the modern economy. On the one hand, they’re not really worth all that much—airline miles, hotel points, and credit card reward points max out at about 1.5 cents per point, with most valued significantly less than a penny. On the other hand, they’re basically free money—you get them whenever you use the card, so as long as you’re traveling places you need to go to and buying stuff you need anyway (and not paying interest on those purchases), those points will eventually add up to something of value you wouldn’t otherwise have.

If you’ve got an airline-affiliated credit card like the United MileagePlus card or something similar, you’ve probably used the points you accrue mainly to offset the costs of travel. Points can be pretty easily used to pay for flights, hotels, and rental cars, and if the exchange rate is awful it’s still essentially free. But hotels and flights aren’t the only ways to cash in those points.

Donations

The points and miles you earn via credit card purchases or airline loyalty programs may not have much cash value, but they have some cash value. If you want to make the world a slightly better place without actually taking a hit in your bank account, you can probably donate your miles or points to charity. Most loyalty programs already have built-in relationships with charities that make this pretty easy. Keep in mind that these donations are probably not tax-deductible; the IRS views points and miles as discounts, not income.

Magazines

Your loyalty program or credit card website might have a built-in option to subscribe to magazines or newspapers, or you can check out MagsForMiles to see if you can trade those points for reading material. If you’ve got nothing else to do with your miles and you will actually get something out of the periodical, this could make sense—especially because points and miles are often high-value when used this way, for some reason. For example, with MileagePlus miles you can get a 15-issue subscription to Wine Spectator for 1,000 miles; that sub costs about $72 annually if you bought it directly, which values your point at about 7 cents each, which is not bad at all.

Gift cards

If you want to convert your miles or points into something a little more flexible, a solution most people overlook is a gift card. Most of these programs will happily sell you a gift card (you can also sometimes exchange your unwanted gift cards for points—United’s MileagePlus program does this—creating a weird kind of circular economy of craptastic gift cards). As with all points/miles transactions, you have to dig in to see if you’re getting any sort of value. A $5.00 Starbucks card through MileagePlus will cost you 1,666 points, making those points worth about 3 cents each. On the other hand, a gift card makes it a lot easier to actually buy things at Starbucks, so it might make sense. Plus, it’s a way to give someone a gift without spending any real money, you cheap weirdo.

Experiences

Yeah, the word “experiences” is kind of silly, but if you’ve got a stash of miles or points sitting in an account somewhere, you should look into the “experiences” you can either buy or bid on. MileagePlus offers a bunch of sporting experiences you can bid on with your miles, and Hilton Honors members can bid on a wide range of special events, like concerts, sporting events, or special dinners. Since these are usually auctions of some kind, you might get tempted into using more points or miles than you want—but since those miles and points are more or less free, it might be fun to just yeet them into an adventure you might otherwise never pay for.

Cash

While it’s generally legal to sell your points or miles to a third party like MilesBuyer, it’s not a great idea because most airlines and credit cards prohibit the practice. If you’re caught, you could lose your account and all your accrued points or miles.

But there are some options. Many rewards programs have options to cash out your points—Citi, for example, makes it pretty easy to convert your ThankYou points into a direct deposit into your bank account, a credit to your credit card balance, or even a check in the mail. That transforms your difficult-to-redeem points into actual cash, so it’s worth checking into the details of your program to see what your options are. But do the math before you jump on it—generally speaking, you want to get at least a penny a point before you convert to cash; otherwise waiting to redeem them for other goods or services might make more sense. For example, Citi’s ThankYou points are worth exactly one penny each when you turn them into cash, so 5,000 points becomes a $50 deposit in your account.

With some products, like phones, you have a myriad of options to sort through. But if you want to buy one of Peloton's spin bikes, you only have two choices: the Bike or the Bike+ (pronounced “bike plus”). That little “+” costs an extra thousand dollars, so is it really worth it? Let’s dive in. 

Overview of the important features

I’ll go over the details below, but here’s the short answer: if you just want “a Peloton,” the regular Bike is the original. It’s the one most people have, it’s cheaper, and it does the job just fine. I have a regular Bike and I’ve never felt like I’m missing out. The regular price for a Bike is $1,445, but with a good sale you can find it closer to $1,000. If you're willing to look at used models, they can often be had in the mid to high triple digits.

Original Peloton Bike | Indoor Stationary Exercise Bike with Immersive 22" HD Touchscreen (Updated Seat Post)

$1,250.00

$1,445.00 Save $195.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$1,250.00

$1,445.00 Save $195.00

The Bike+ costs significantly more, so what are you paying for? The tech components are nicer, so the on-screen experience will feel a bit faster and smoother. Other than that, the big features are auto-resistance (the bike will follow along with classes without you having to turn the knob) and a swiveling screen so you can turn it to the side for things like strength workouts and guided yoga sessions. List price on the Bike+ is $2,495, with deals sometimes bringing it as low as $1,995. Refurbished and used models will, of course, cost a bit less.

Peloton Bike+ | Indoor Stationary Exercise Bike with 24” HD, Anti-Reflective Rotating Touchscreen

$2,100.00

$2,495.00 Save $395.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$2,100.00

$2,495.00 Save $395.00

What’s the same between the Bike and the Bike+

Most of the differences between the two bikes are tech-related, and we’ll get into those in a minute. But first, you should know what’s the same between the two bikes. 

First, they’re the same size. Both have the same footprint, 4 feet by 2 feet—Peloton recommends that you allow 24 inches on each side of the bike, and that you put it in an area with at least 8-foot-high ceilings. This allows even tall riders to be able to stand up and pedal. (If you don’t care about standing, or if you’re shorter, you might be able to squeeze into a tighter space. I’m 5’6” and never had an issue with my attic’s 7-foot ceilings.)

The controls and the frame are the same, with the exception that the original Bike had a seat post recall, and the Bike+ did not. (If you’re buying used, make sure that the seat post was replaced.) Both have a hard wired 3.5mm headphone jack, although it’s probably more common to use the onboard speakers or a bluetooth headset rather than plugging in a pair of headphones.  

Both flavors of bike can accommodate a rider who is anywhere between 4’11” and 6’4” and weighs up to 297 pounds. The Bike itself weighs 135 pounds, and the Bike+ weighs 140, due mainly to the hefty flywheel (with spin bikes, the heavier the flywheel, the better).

Both the Bike and Bike+ have access to the same subscription options. For the $44/month All-Access subscription, you get: 

• Classes on the bike—these are the classic offering, with a charismatic instructor leading you through a structured workout (and often peppering it with motivational speeches).

• Scenic rides on the bike, with “Peloton radio” for music (I usually mute it and just play my own music from my phone).

• Lanebreak (a sort of ride-along video game) on the bike.

• Access to classes through the Peloton app on your phone.

• The ability to create multiple profiles for family members, so you can all share the bike without additional subscriptions.

Besides cycling classes, the bikes and the app can also provide follow-along classes for strength, stretching, yoga, and more. You can take bike classes on the phone app as well, a handy feature when you have access to a spin bike but it’s not a Peloton (for example, at a gym). 

Now that we know what’s the same, let’s dig into the differences.

The Bike+ has a swiveling screen, but don’t buy it just for that

The first thing you’ll notice about the Bike+ (and arguably its only visually distinctive feature) is the fact that its screen is on a swivel. This lets you set up a space next to the bike, perhaps with a mat and dumbbells, to do other types of workouts. Hop off the Bike+, point the screen toward your mat, and you can do a yoga class without having to crane your neck to see over the seat. 

The screen on the regular Bike doesn’t swivel, but it does tilt. This lets you adjust it for the most comfortable angle or to avoid glare while you’re riding. If you want that swiveling feature, though, you don’t have to pony up an extra grand for a whole new bike—an aftermarket swivel mount is only about 50 smackers.

TFD The Pivot for Peloton Bikes (Original Models), Made in USA | 360° Movement Monitor Adjuster - Easily Adjust & Rotate Your Peloton Screen | Peloton Accessories

$49.99

$54.99 Save $5.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$49.99

$54.99 Save $5.00

The Bike+ has auto-resistance and a real power meter

If the Bike+ has a killer feature, it’s this. When an instructor tells you to set your resistance to 30, you don’t need to touch the knob—the Bike+ will adjust the resistance for you. 

You can turn this feature on or off during a ride by tapping the lock icon next to the resistance numbers. On regular rides, the Bike+ will adjust the resistance whenever the instructor announces that the resistance is changing; on power zone rides, it will adjust as needed to keep you in your power zone. 

The catch is that auto-resistance only works for rides where “target metrics” are programmed. This includes most rides from Peloton’s back catalog, but it does not include rides where you’re following along with an instructor in real time. After those live rides, Peloton will add the target metrics, but they say it can take up to 24 hours for that feature to become available for a given ride. 

The Bike+ also has a power meter built in, so that it can tell exactly how many watts your output is. (The regular Bike will show you an estimated wattage, but Bikes can become miscalibrated and the wattage may be off.) While you can calibrate a regular Bike, the Bike+ always knows how hard you are actually pedaling, and you may appreciate this extra accuracy.

The Bike+ has better quality tech in its tablet

The screen on the front of your Bike or Bike+ isn’t just a screen; it’s a whole tablet computer with its own processor, RAM, and other electronic components. An under-appreciated part of the Bike+ upgrade is just that everything in the tablet is nicer, better, and faster. The screen itself is larger: a 23.8” diagonal instead of 21.5”. The Bike+ also has:

• 4 gigabytes of RAM instead of just two

• A 2.5 gigahertz Qualcomm processor instead of a 2.0 GHz Mediatek

• A 26-watt sound system with front- and rear-facing speakers instead of a 16-watt system with just rear-facing speakers

• Bluetooth 5.0 instead of 4.0

• A USB-C port so you can charge your devices while you ride (the regular Bike has a charging port, but it’s micro-USB, so most of us would need to get an adapter).

• A smudge-proof, reduced-reflection coating on that big ol' screen.

There are also two features that are better on paper but that won’t matter to most of us. First, the Bike+ supports GymKit, a protocol for connecting your Apple Watch to the Bike+ for heart rate data. (They briefly stopped supporting GymKit, since there’s a Peloton Apple Watch app that does most of what GymKit does, but got enough complaints that they brought it back.)  

Second, the Bike+ has a nicer selfie camera, 8 MP versus 5 MP (and a privacy cover for said camera). Wait, the Peloton has a camera?? I hear you say. Yep, and according to Peloton its only use is for taking a selfie to use as your profile picture. (You can also just take a photo on your phone and add it to your profile through the app.) That said, Peloton users have said they’ve used the camera for video chat—but nobody seems to actually like that feature.

Ultimately, these features mean that your experience will be just a little bit faster and smoother. Some Peloton riders say that the nicer tech means that Lanebreak is less likely to have that occasional lag when you change “lanes” during the ride, and that the interface is just generally a bit more responsive.

The bottom line: Peloton Bike vs. Bike+

The Bike is a solid choice that will fulfill pretty much all your Peloton dreams. The Bike+ has some features that are nice-to-haves. 

Buy the Bike if: 

• You just want a dang Peloton.

• You don’t want to pay an extra $1,050 for minor upgrades.

Buy the Bike+ if: 

• You want the fastest and smoothest tech experience.

• You’d like the Bike to adjust itself during (most) classes.

• You’re a numbers nerd and want to know your exact wattage and know that the bike is perfectly calibrated.

Ultimately, both are good choices. The exact price differential between the two models will depend on whether you can find your chosen bike on sale, used, or as a rental (I crunch the numbers for those scenarios here).

Even as we move into gardening seasoning outside, I am keeping all of my indoor gardens going through the summer months. I've been surprised by how handy it is to have these gardens nearby and how it leads to me using crops like fresh herbs more often. The side effect I didn't expect was how much I enjoy having the actual plants and greenery around in my bedroom and living room: The gardens produce a calming tickling-water sound, like a creek, and I love the smell of the plants. If gardening outside isn't for you, you might find one of these indoor gardening sets that require almost no skill to be just the trick.

These commercial sets include everything you might need, from the seed cups and growing medium, to the lights, and the use a pump to recirculate the water at regular intervals. Small sets like the Aerogarden Harvest or Letpot can sit on a countertop and large ones like Rise need their own space on the floor. Here are the tips I’ve developed to use these gardens more effectively. 

Buy a level

Hydroponic gardens work by keeping the roots of the plant constantly hydrated either in a pool of recirculating water or by routinely “watering” them via a pump. For this to work effectively, the entire system has to be level. Usually, bigger kits like Rise will have leveling feet to help with this, but a system like LettuceGrow doesn’t, so you’ll need shims. You still need to ensure your countertop garden is level. When they’re not, the water will list to one side of the garden, and some roots might not get hydrated. If only one side of your garden is germinating, this might be the cause. 

Grow the right crops

Hydro gardens grow crops in a tight space, with a finite amount of “sunlight” and no soil for roots to steady themselves in. While almost anything will still grow, crops that are going to require a lot of support like squash can’t flourish. Crops with a really long grow period, like pumpkins, also are not ideal for the system, since you’ll need to turn the garden system over before the pumpkin is done and it will grow out of the “sunlight.” Moreover, while smaller and smaller vegetable plants are always being bred (I recently grew actual tomatoes on eight-inch tall plants from Aerogarden), it doesn’t mean they’ll taste good. I’ve been really disappointed by fruit and vegetables grown in hydroponic environments; while they still receive nutrition, sunlight and water, they usually just don’t taste great. So while you can grow almost anything, I’ve found that simply growing herbs or simpler, short crops like peas is the best way to go. 

Learn how to self-pollinate

Since your hydroponic garden won’t be visited by bees to do the work of carrying pollen from plant to plant, you’ll need to do that if you grow any type of fruit or vegetable. I’ve seen many of these gardens advise casually shaking the plants from time to time, but this is disingenuous. To achieve good pollination rates, you need to really vibrate the plants and do it often while there are flowers. The best way I’ve found to do this is with a real vibrator or massage wand and to use a smart automation to have it run for a minute every few hours. I specifically looked for one that plugged in and used a manual switch, rather than a button to be powered on each time. This way, I could leave the want plugged in and on, and just set an automation for the outlet it was plugged into. I just left it set on top of the garden, but you could also tape it to the back. As long as it’s attached in some way to the garden, it will vibrate it enough that the pollen will be freed and form a cloud of yellow dust that will settle onto the blossoms and pollinate them. 

Grow any seed you’d like

Most companies that make hydroponic gardens sell seed packs or starts for those gardens, and they’re quite expensive. But the gardens provide everything a plant needs to grow: sunlight, nutrition, and water. You can always purchase aftermarket pods and growing medium and plant your own seeds. There’s nothing particularly special about the lettuce or herb seeds they’re using, and you likely have seeds or can purchase a packet of them, cheaply. While small “patio” vegetables are bred specifically for these purposes, you can usually purchase similar varieties online (although, again, growing them is mostly for sport as they don’t taste great). 

Be vigilant about pest prevention

Plants will attract pests like aphids and gnats on their own with little work. Hydro gardens seem to worsen the problem, so you have to be proactive. Always ensure there is no standing water around, from a leaking unit or when you add water to the unit. Using traps nearby is a good idea—I like the Zevo flying insect traps that use UV light to attract the insects. You can consider adding nasturtium flowers to your garden—not in abundance, but in one of the growing pods since they work to “trap” aphids. The aphids are attracted to the nasturtium, and just hang out on it, avoiding your other plants; you just leave the nasturtium to do it’s work. 

The secret sauce, for me, has been using smaller gardens for growing herbs, which I use consistently, making sure I am hacking the plants back on a regular basis to keep them from bolting. For larger gardens, I grow greens like lettuce, celery, celery, chard, and spinach. Using small, compact plants like these means that nothing is crowded out, there’s no fruit to be disappointed by or that will take too much time, and you ultimately end up pretty satisfied with the experience. 

Your IP address is something you usually don't need to think about—in fact you might never have heard of it before—but it's an important little piece of information attached to every device on your home network. Knowing the ins and outs of IP addresses can be useful in configuring the wifi network in your home, troubleshooting connection problems, and keeping your devices safe while they're online. Here's where you can find them, and what they do.

What is an IP address?

Every connected device has at least one IP address. Credit: Lifehacker

An IP address is an Internet Protocol address: It works a bit like a postal address does for the place where you live, enabling websites and web servers to find you and maintain a working connection. It's an essential bit of code in making the internet work, and it looks like a series of numbers and letters with a bit of punctuation thrown in.

Every device connected to your router at home will have a local (or private) IP address, which helps the router figure out which gadget is which and keep everything running smoothly. In addition, your router has an external (or public) IP address it broadcasts to the world, which helps everything else on the internet find you.

You'll come across both the older, simpler IPv4 addresses and the newer, more complex IPv6 addresses for your devices. Most current hardware makes use of both, but eventually it's expected that IPv4 will be phased out, albeit very slowly—IPv6 was introduced all the way back in 1995 because the internet was quite simply running out of addresses to use.

All of this is handled behind the scenes by your wifi router and your internet provider, fortunately. In fact, most routers and internet providers give dynamic IP addresses for local and external use, which are changing all the time (it's a bit easier and more cost-effective that way)—but your connection to the internet at large isn't affected.

You'll only really need to know your IP address for specific scenarios, usually involving some change in network configuration: Maybe you're connecting up a network drive to the web that you need to access remotely, for example, or you're trying to get online multiplayer features working on a games console. Here's how to find out what your IP addresses currently are.

How to find your external IP address

There's no shortage of websites around to tell you your IP address. Credit: Lifehacker

A host of different websites will tell you your IP address: It's a piece of information you give to every site you visit in exchange for connecting to them, though you can switch to a different external IP address by setting up a VPN. Remember, too, that as we've said, most internet providers give you a dynamic IP address that regularly changes.

VPNs will broadcast the IP address of one of their servers somewhere in the world, which means your external IP address stays hidden from the sites you load up. If you want to get at your external IP address, make sure you're not currently using a VPN.

With that check completed, all you need to do is visit a website such as the aptly named WhatIsMyIPAddress and you'll get both your IPv6 and IPv4 addresses on screen. (Depending on how the network you're using has been set up, across both hardware and software, you may only see an IPv4 or an IPv6 address.) You can also just type "what is my IP?" into Google and the search engine should tell you (though it might not be the top result).

How to find your internal IP address

Getting your IP address on Windows. Credit: Lifehacker

On a Windows computer, go to Settings from the Start menu, open up the Network & internet page and click either wifi and then the network name, or Ethernet, depending on how you're connected. Your local IPv6 and IPv4 addresses are then included in the information on screen, with a handy Copy button next to the details.

Over in macOS land, you need to open the Apple menu, then choose System Settings and Network. Pick wifi or Ethernet, depending on how you're currently connected to the internet, then select Details next to the network you're on. The Mac's local IP address is listed on the next screen, together with your router's IP address.

Next, the iPhone. From the main iOS Settings screen, tap wifi, then the small blue information bubble next to your current network to see your IP addresses. Note that phones will often have several listed—sometimes for extra privacy protection, and also to account for both wifi and cellular connections.

As usual for Android, the exact menu names and structure vary depending on your phone: On Pixels, open Settings and tap Network and Internet and Internet. Next to the network you're currently on there will be a gear icon: Tap this, then scroll down to see the IP address of your device.

With Samsung Galaxy phones, open Settings and select Connections, wifi, and then the gear icon next to the network you're currently hooked up to. Choose View more to see the relevant IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. If you're not using a Pixel or Galaxy phone, you should be able to find something along these lines through the internet options in Settings.

One of the most under-appreciated Mac features is the services menu, which you can find by right-clicking just about anything—highlighted text, say, or any image. Hover over the "Services" section and you'll see a bunch of quick actions. You can find this same collection in the menu bar: just click the name of the application that's currently open and hover over Services.

Credit: Justin Pot

There are all kinds of useful options here. You can, for example, look up a word in the dictionary, or add a bit of text to your to-do list. You can open a URL using IINA, a great video player for Mac. You get the idea: you can automate whatever it is that is selected. You can take control of which things do, and do not, show up by open System Settings and heading to Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services. From here you can check or uncheck items. You can also set custom keyboard shortcuts for these services.

Credit: Justin Pot

Where things get really fun, though, is when you look into the custom services you can download. Here are a few of the best apps I could find that add cool features to the services menu on your Mac.

Dictater reads text to you out loud

Credit: Justin Pot

The Mac comes with a built-in service for reading text, but I don't really like it very much. Dictater, in my experience, works a lot better. With this application you can highlight any text, in any app, and have it read out loud. There's a pop-up window with buttons to play and jump forward and backward, and an optional window you can open to see the text on screen as it is read. You can change the voice used in System Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content, if you like—I prefer to use one of the high-quality Siri voices.

CalcService does math

CalcService is a free download that lets you do math in any text field. With the app installed you can highlight any mathematical formula in any app—for example, (62*7)/4, and get an answer right in place, like this: (62*7)/4 = 108.5. It's magic, and even better once you create a keyboard shortcut for the feature.

WordService

Credit: Justin Pot

WordService comes as a free download from Devon Technologies, the same company that made CalcService. This one offers all kinds of tools for working with text, the most obviously useful of which allows you to get a word count and character count for any text you highlight. This is useful for all kinds of things, from composing social media posts to long-form writing. But there's so much more here to dig into. There are actions for converting text that's in all caps to lowercase, and vice versa. There are actions for inserting the current time, or the current date. And there are actions for adding or removing smart quotes from a block of text. If you publish things online regularly, this is a good collection of tools to have around.

SearchLink quickly looks for a link and adds it

SearchLink is a little harder to explain but I love it. Basically, you can highlight any text, trigger the service, and the tool will automatically search the web for the term and add a markdown-formatted link. So, for example, here's a text document with my name in it:

Credit: Justin Pot

If I run SearchLink on the highlighted text, which is my name, the document looks like this:

Credit: Justin Pot

The link has been added, without me having to open a browser. This can save you a lot of time while writing, assuming that you do that writing in markdown. And there are more advanced features you can dig into, including one that will fill in all the links in a document. It's a great tool to have around.

Shortcuts can work this way too

Credit: Justin Pot

Didn't quite find the app you want? You could try building one yourself. Any shortcut you build in Apple Shortcuts can function as a service. Just make sure Use as Quick Action and Services Menu are highlighted in the Shortcut details pane. Check out our list of the most helpful Shortcuts on macOS if you need a few ideas of how to put this to work.

Remember when every movie you loved was on a VHS tape stored in a giant plastic clamshell? Our children will never know the struggle of prying one of those things open to watch their favorite Disney classics. On the other hand, thanks to streaming, you can still show them what made family movies in the '90s so great—without the hassle of a trip tp Blockbuster (and no need to rewind them either). Here are 13 family movies from the '90s that still hold up, from obscure animated gems to great book adaptations.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

It's never too early to show your kids an inspirational sports movie. You probably already know the plot of this one (or could guess it if you've ever seen any other sports movies): A reluctant coach teaches the worst youth team in the league the power of teamwork, with an assist with a few good montages. What makes this movie different is that the team (which ended up inspiring an actual NHL franchise) expects just as much from their coach as he does of them, and rakes him over the coals when he doesn't come through.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Cats Don't Dance (1997)

Chances are you missed this colorful animated gem back in the day. Due to the merger between Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, the studio's marketing department forgot about it, so it quickly came and went from theaters. But those who have seen it absolutely love it for the songs (penned by Randy Newman), animated choreography (developed by the late, great Gene Kelly), and a fun story about a cat named Danny who dreams of breaking into Hollywood. 

Where to stream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Digital rental

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

You and your kids don't need to see the first Babe to appreciate its superior follow up (though you won't mind watching that one either). Using the vivid color palette and visual flair he more recently brought to Mad Max: Fury Road franchise, director George Miller builds a tough but dreamy metropolis that tests the optimism of its hero, a wee pig trying to save his farm from bankruptcy. While this factoid may not mean much to your kids, the film is a favorite of musician Tom Waits, making it much cooler than your typical kid's movie.

Where to stream: Starz, Digital rental

A Goofy Movie (1995)

The '90s had its share of pop stars, but none reached the heights that "Stand Out" singer Powerline did when he appeared in this movie spin-off of the television series Goof Troop. The film chronicles a road trip between the titular dad and his teenage son Max, and the inevitable hi-jinx that ensue. When you show this cult classic to your kids, you can tell them how Powerline inspired Justin Bieber to be a performer (not true).

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Matilda (1996)

Much like today, the '90s were littered with Roald Dahl adaptations and reboots. There was James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, and this quirky little film about a young girl who uses her wits and psychic powers to get even with the sadistic adults around her. Director Danny Devito (who also plays Matilda's awful father) uses low camera angles to capture Matilda's literal point of view, a trick that makes the film visually relatable to its intended audience, who will appreciate some fantastic gags as Matilda plays tricks on her parents and attempts to keep one step ahead of her monstrous, bully of a school principal.If your kids love this one, the recent Netflix musical adaptation makes a nice chaser (though the plots differ slightly). 

Where to stream: Digital rental

Life With Mikey (1993)

Michael J. Fox breaks the W.C. Fields' rule of never working "with children or animals" in this film about a former child star turned talent agent who tries to land his newest pint-sized client a job. Throw in some Broadway stars like Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, Mandy Patinkin (in a cameo), plus a young (and kind of horny) David Krumholtz, and you've got the makings of a fun family comedy. 

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Mouse Hunt (1997)

Speaking of Nathan Lane, the actor's physical comedy chops were tested in this classic about a pair of brothers trying to flip their father's house to make a small fortune. There's only one problem: the tiny mouse who lives inside its walls won't leave, which leaves the duo no choice but to exterminate it by any means necessary. Think Home Alone with a rodent.

Where to stream: Prime Video, Paramount+, Fubo TV, MGM+, Digital rental

Fly Away Home (1996)

Before they were a couple in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin played a father and daughter who build a goose-shaped glider so they can lead a flock of geese on their first migration south for the winter. Assuming your children aren't into mid-2000s art house films, the pairing of these two actors won't affect their enjoyment of this heartwarming, visually stunning film.

Where to stream: Digital rental

The Parent Trap (1998)

Yes, Nancy Meyers, the creative force behind nearly every romantic comedy you've loved since, well, the '90s, co-wrote and directed this remake of the Disney classic about a pair of twins (both played Lindsey Lohan, truly winning in her debut role) who scheme to reunite their divorced parents. While it borrows liberally from the 1961 original, this version is entirely its own thing, filled with humor that will satisfy adults and kids. 

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Casper (1995)

Finding a ghost story your kids will like without freaking them out is tough. But somehow, in the '90s, they got one right. Based on the beloved comic and cartoon, Casper focuses more on slapstick than scares, with a cute (and innocent) teenage love story thrown in: Christina Ricci plays a young teenager who moves into a dilapidated old house with her ghost hunter father, who is shocked to discover it is inhabited by real ghosts—including one who is very friendly. 

Where to stream: Digital rental

The Sandlot (1993)

I know I already put one sports movie on this list, but if I had left this one off, I know it would have come up in the comments. On the off chance you're unfamiliar with this classic, the plot revolves around a group of neighborhood boys trying to retrieve a valuable signed Babe Ruth baseball from their neighbor's backyard, guarded by his huge, slobbery Mastiff. What makes it memorable are the vignettes spread throughout the film, each of which captures a genuine slice of childhood whimsy.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Harriet the Spy (1996)

Before Mean Girls brought the concept of "burn books" into the cultural lexicon, there was Harriet the Spy. Based on the novel by Louise Fitzhugh, the movie follows grade schooler Harriet as she writes all her thoughts about her friends in her notebooks. But when one of her tomes is discovered by a classmate who shares all the secrets inside, her friends begin shutting her out. Though there is a clear moral to be learned from Harriet's shenanigans, it's a fun journey getting to it. 

Where to stream: Hoopla, Paramount+, Fubo TV, Digital rental

Muppet Treasure Island (1996)

Since your children are probably not old enough to watch Clue or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, you can introduce them to the genius of Tim Curry with this wacky adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel concerning pirates and treasure. They won't be disappointed.

Where to stream: Disney+, Digital rental

Proton Pass is one of the youngest and yet best password managers on the market, already catching up to industry veterans like 1Password and BitWarden. Now, the company is looking to make its free password manager even more useful, while also adding in some extra functionality for premium subscribers.

At its most basic level, Proton Pass is completely free to all users. This gets you a genuinely competitive password manager, and now access to the new Pass Monitor and Password Health features, which will tell you if your passwords are weak or reused. The password manager will even be able to identify if your accounts do not have 2FA (two-factor authentication), which you can then activate without leaving the app or website. Proton says these checks are all done on-device, too, without sending any of your private data over the internet.

This new update also brings Proton Pass even more in line with some of its biggest competitors. 1Password, another popular manager that I’ve used for several years, offers similar functionality, but requires a monthly subscription. Other options, like LastPass, offer a free plan, but with recent data breaches, some might not be comfortable going with that option.

There's also Bitwarden, which also features a free plan and has previously earned glowing recommendations. However, security reports for Bitwarden are locked behind a premium subscription that costs $10 a year.

Proton Pass, by contrast, avoids locking core functionality behind a monthly subscription. Instead, users that pick up the Pass Plus plan for $1.99 a month (or those that subscribe to Proton Unlimited) get a suite of bonus features. The newest of these is real-time Dark Web Monitoring, which was announced today and will alert you if any of your email addresses or other private information leaks onto the dark web.

This new function works in conjunction with the recent release of Proton Mail’s Dark Web Monitoring. Premium users also get access to Proton Sentinel, a system designed to help stop account takeovers even if someone successfully steals your Proton login details. The company says that Sentinel has stopped over 15,000 account takeovers since it launched in August of 2023.

Son Nguyen, Director of Product at Proton, says “Pass Monitor allows users to evaluate the security status of their online credentials and provides immediate alerts if their data is compromised,” offering a proactive way to protect your important accounts and private information.

When you think about streaming music, it's quite likely that Spotify is the first name that comes to mind. Spotify has a massive library, a great music recommendation algorithm, and several useful features worth paying for. Spotify Premium is the paid version of the world’s most popular music streaming service. If you can't afford it, or don't want to pay for Spotify, you can still use its free tier. Free Spotify has some annoying limitations, though, such as a limited number of song skips and plenty of ads, and it doesn't let you see time-synced lyrics, either. You also miss out on the highest quality audio and lose the ability to download music for offline listening. Although you can block Spotify ads on some platforms, the rest are dealbreakers for a lot of people.

How much is Spotify Premium?

Spotify Premium has four paid plans. If you’re buying it for yourself, you’ll want Premium Individual, which costs $10.99 per month. For those who want to share music with one other person in their household, Premium Duo at $14.99 per month is the best plan. For families or larger groups who want Spotify Premium, there’s the Premium Family plan at $16.99 per month. This plan allows up to six people to sign up for one sub, but all of them should be living at the same address.

If you’re a student attending an accredited higher education institution, you can sign up for the Premium Student plan, which costs $5.99/month. This plan also lets you access Hulu (with ads).

How to get discounts on Spotify Premium

The best way to save on Spotify Premium is to sign up for an annual plan using a gift card. You can get these gift cards from Amazon or Best Buy at $99 for an annual plan. If you’re sure you’ll use Spotify all year, then you end up saving $33 when compared to paying month-to-month.

Of course, you can also take advantage of Spotify Premium’s free trials. The duration of these free trials keeps changing over time, but one thing remains the same—it only works if you've never used Spotify Premium before. You're free to create a fresh account and keep signing up for free trials for as long as you can get away with it, but remember that you'll lose your listening history and playlists each time you create a new account. At the time of writing, Spotify was offering a three-month free trial on its website. You may also periodically come across promotions that offer longer free trials. At the time of publication, Spotify and Tinder had a collaboration to let you sign up for four months of Premium for free. PayPal also offers a three-month Spotify Premium free trial.

Your employer may also offer Spotify Premium for free. (Starbucks is one of these employers.)

You can sign up for Spotify Premium from another region that has lower pricing. For example, Spotify Premium in India starts from as little as INR 7 per day ($0.08); the most affordable monthly plan costs INR 119 per month ($1.43). You’ll have to use a VPN to periodically sign in from the region you choose. Know, however, that streaming deals vary by region so some artists available on Spotify USA may be missing when you sign up from other regions.

May is when all the work you’ve put into your yard over the years starts showing. Suddenly, what looked sparse and barren just five weeks ago is filled out with greenery and signs of life. May is a heavy work month in the garden, but if you put in the time and effort now, you’ll have a summer full of blooms and fruit. 

General garden maintenance

Watering systems may have taken a hit during winter storms, so now is the time to ensure that the controller is working, that none of your underwater pipes have burst, and that all your above-ground connections are intact. Go zone by zone and test each of your lines. If you use a hose bib setup, get it up and running, and then check it. It can still be raining in many parts of the country, but very soon you’ll need your irrigation in place. For plants growing in full sun, you want to aim for one to two inches of water a week by watering in the morning.  

Your established beds can benefit from a layer of compost, which will act as a general fertilizer, as well as create volume back in your beds if they’ve experienced erosion during the winter. Follow the compost with a layer of mulch. Spending this time spreading the compost and mulch will give you the opportunity to size up each part of your garden, so take notes as you go for which areas need weeding, are experiencing pests, or have plants that look like they might not have survived the winter. 

Shrubs, trees and vines

A number of shrubs go through blooming cycles in spring, like lilac and forsythia. Once they’ve bloomed, you can prune them back, and in some cases, like lilac, this may trigger a second bloom later in the season. In either case, it will take one fall task off your list and keep the garden looking tidier. 

This is a good time to plant new woody shrubs and trees—the weather is mild, and the ground should be soft from the rains. For your existing trees, make sure you feed them with a fertilizer that is appropriate for them this month. Your garden center can help identify which fertilizer is best for the trees you have. Each of these trees will be creating shoots this month, and you should prune them back as necessary to maintain the shape of the tree and to keep fruit to an amount the tree can reasonably support. Ensure you are only using clean pruners or loppers—carry diluted bleach or Lysol with you in a spray bottle while outside. 

Climbing perennial vines like clematis, roses and honeysuckle should be coming out of their slumber at this point, and you’ll want to ensure you’re supporting them by tying them loosely to their trellises as they climb. 

Annual flowers

Garden centers should be full of annuals at this point of the year, including petunias, lobelia, marigolds and begonias. Annuals are a bit more tender than perennials, so you want to wait until you are past the risk of freezing to plant. Annuals can fill an area with color in the space and time between perennials blooming, and are ideal for window boxes and planters, where it might be hard for annuals to survive the winter. Most hanging baskets have annuals for the same reason—they’re just too exposed for perennials or anything else to survive winter. You can plant your baskets now, but you might need to wait until it’s warm enough for them to come out; you want to focus on overnight temperatures and soil temperature to determine the right date. 

Perennial flowers

Most people will have tulips in bloom or just completed at this point—remember not to cut them down after bloom. Tulips need their leaves in order to come back next year, so let them compost in place. Once the foliage has yellowed, it’s ok to divide or move the bulbs. Once the tulip has bloomed, it’s a great time for a bulb fertilizer, so they’ll be strong next year. You can also plant summer bulbs like dahlias and cannas now, if the risk of frost is gone.

If you didn’t get new perennials planted in April, you can still do so now, or divide the perennials you have. The ground should be very workable now, and you may be noticing which plants are ready to be divided as you move about the garden. If you’d like them to bloom this summer, you’ll want to get this task done in May. As you plant, ensure you’re using slow release fertilizer in the ground where you plant. 

Your roses need a spring fertilizer and might need some shaping at this point or help attaching to the trellis. Look for signs of stress or pests and ensure you’re treating them with appropriate treatments. Your garden center can help. 

Vegetables

Many zones across the country will start putting vegetables in the ground sometime in May, depending on the soil temperature, overnight temperature and the risk of frost. Begin hardening off vegetables like tomatoes, pepper and eggplant as appropriate.

Perennial vegetables like asparagus and artichokes should be active now. Remember to harvest asparagus daily, taking only spears that are larger than your pinky. Once spears become thinner, it’s time to leave the plant alone for next year. Watch your artichoke plants for ants or aphid infestations, which may be sprayed off, but will return without further treatment like neem oil or nearby trap flowers like nasturtiums. Both asparagus beds and artichokes will benefit from a spring fertilizer. 

By mid to late May, almost all regions should be planting their warn weather crops. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, but also beans, corn, cucumber and everything else. Your beans and corn can be direct seeded, as can melon, pumpkin and both winter and summer squash, but using starts will give you a leg up for the summer.

If you planted potatoes in the spring, it’s likely time to hill up earth around the sprouts. 

Thin out your strawberry beds of runners. Strawberry plants can either focus their energy on producing these runners or on fruit, but aren’t very good at doing both. Each spring the beds much be thinned to create better and larger fruit. You can give away the runners or plant them elsewhere.

Pest control

Reduce snail and slug populations by putting out traps and going on regular evening hunts. Doing this now, as the rains cease, will greatly reduce problems later this summer. Hang pheromone traps in your fruit trees now, which will control pests this summer and protect your fruit. 

May is moving day for young seedlings. I am constantly moving trays of flowers and vegetables from the growing room to my popup greenhouse for more space, or hardening them off outside to get ready to go into the ground. As they move out, they make room to seed-start the next group of flowers and vegetables for the mid summer. If you catch me outside, there’s a good chance there are a few seed packs in my pocket to remind me to put something in the ground, too. Summer is just starting, but there are lots of seeds to be planted right now, either inside to grow into starts, or direct seeding outside.

Lawns

Take advantage of the last of the rains to help germinate lawn seed. If your lawn has patches that need some reseeding or you want to plant a whole summer lawn, work with your local garden center to find the right seed. Germination is really dependent on water, so you want to balance last frost date and warm enough weather for the seed you plant with there being enough rain so you’re not watering constantly. 

It’s not just traditional lawns, either. If you’ve got an eco lawn or clover lawn, you can flesh out the area by adding red and strawberry clover seed for the summer as well as English daisy seed. Ideally, you’re not creating a monoculture of one kind of seed, so other low lying flowers can be added in. 

Annual flowers

In most parts of the U.S., you’ll start to get enough sunshine this month to direct seed outside, which just means you’ll plant the seeds in the soil, rather than try to grow seedlings inside to plant outside later. If you’re going to try to direct-seed annuals like wildflowers, they can start going in the ground as soon as you’ve reasonably passed the risk of frost. Pay attention to the packet for instructions as to depth of seeds—many seeds can not germinate by simply being sprinkled on top of the soil; they need cover of soil. Your sunflower seeds, for instance, need a depth of an inch or so. A good basic rule is that seeds need to be planted as deep as their size. So tiny seeds like celosia and poppy are ok to be sowed on the surface, but marigolds and zinnia must be planted about half an inch deep. If you want to scatter the seeds to get a more natural look rather than poke holes for the seeds, scratch up an area so there’s soil contact for the seeds, then scatter them and cover them by sprinkling soil on top and patting it down. Finish by watering. 

Remember that summer is finite, so if you haven’t planted annual flower starts and you want to direct seed, you’ll want to do so before the end of May—although you may succession-seed another round of flowers later this summer, like zinnias or sunflowers. 

Vegetables

All of your tender summer vegetables benefit from going into your garden as seedlings, rather than seeds. The summer is just so short that that you want to ensure you have enough runway to grow tomatoes and eggplants and peppers before it’s over. Generally, most people either grow or buy starts for the rest of their garden as well, including pumpkins, corn, cucumbers, squash, and beans. But you can direct-seed these, and now is the time to do so. Direct-seeding has some upsides: You don’t need room inside to grow them or soil and pots. The downside is that seeds outside are a little more vulnerable to squirrels and birds, and those young shoots are vulnerable to snails, slugs, and squirrels. All this to say: You should over-plant (and remember to follow the seeding instructions on the seed package for the appropriate depth of different types of seeds). 

Be sure that you take advantage of the last spring rain to germinate additional rounds of carrots. Since they need constant moisture during germination, the rain can carry the load here. This time of year, I leave the radish, lettuce, green onion, beet, and kohlrabi seeds outside in a protected spot so I’ll remember to seed them once a week. You don’t need to put out a packet’s worth each week, just the number that you’ll eat. It helps to mark rows as you go so you don’t plant in a spot you’ve already seeded. 

My favorite tip for having a summers’ worth of lettuce is to direct seed a long, low trough planter of lettuce, but you can just pick a corner of a planting bed. Dump the whole packet of seeds in and be sure to mix it with the top layer of soil so it’s distributed evenly. Water the packet and as it germinates, you'll have a planter packed with lettuce. But if it's too packed, it won’t grow much, so each week, I grab a scoop from the end of the planter, separate those seedlings, and plant them out in the garden beds. The planter acts as a holding space for lettuce most of the summer, and each week I pluck out a few to plant. 

Succession planting

Back inside, it’s time to get your mid-summer starts planted. This can be more lettuce if you prefer to grow it inside, but also chard, brassicas, beans, cucumbers, and mid-summer flowers. Again, you can direct seed these or grow them inside, which is a far more controlled environment.

You can get Microsoft Office 2019 lifetime licenses for Windows or Mac on sale for $24.97 right now (reg. $229) through May 22. Both versions include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote; and the Home & Business edition for Mac also includes Teams. The Professional Plus version for Windows comes with Publisher and Access.

Hardware and software requirements are pretty straightforward: Macs need at least macOS Monterey, 4GB of RAM, and 10GB of free device space, while PCs need a minimum of Windows 10, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of space. Licenses come from a trusted Microsoft partner.

You can get a Microsoft Office 2019 lifetime license for Windows or Mac on sale until May 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices may change at any time:

• Lifetime license to Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows, $24.97 (reg. $229)

• Lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac, $24.97 (reg. $229)

I have no dietary issues with eating heavy cream, but if I’m scrounging around trying to puzzle together a last-minute dinner idea, pasta with vodka sauce rarely materializes. Not because of the vodka aspect (I happen to have plenty of that at the moment), but because I rarely have cream on hand. By a happy accident, I ended up making a simple pantry pasta that convincingly emulated the boozy cream sauce without the cream.

The concept is simple: Add canned cannellini beans to your tomato sauce and let it simmer away. Cannellini beans are prized for their velvety texture, and even the aquafaba (the cloudy water in the can) is creamier than most other bean varieties. The beans eventually break apart, releasing their silky starches and thickening the sauce while tempering the tangy tomato flavor. Don’t think of this as a way to fool anyone into ditching cream; there’s no mistaking that this gravy has beans in it. Instead, I like to appreciate this as simply a scrumptious vodka sauce recipe. 

Helpful tools for your next pasta night:

• ExcelSteel Heavy Duty Colander

• KitchenAid Stainless Steel 2-quart Pot

Lodge 6-quart Dutch Oven

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How to make dairy-free vodka sauce

This recipe begins with the same preparation as any vodka sauce recipe—softening the aromatics and adding the vodka and tomatoes after—but instead of stirring in cream, the cannellini beans take a bit of simmering at the end. (To make a vegan vodka sauce, just omit the pancetta.)

1. Sauté the aromatics

Coat the bottom of a medium pot with a drizzle of olive oil and turn the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic, shallot, and minced pancetta with a pinch of salt. Sauté these ingredients until the pork begins to crisp and the aromatics become translucent. 

2. Add the liquids

Stir in the red pepper flakes and add the vodka. Allow the vodka to reduce by half. This doesn’t take much time—about a minute or two. 

3. Crush the creamy beans

Add the crushed tomatoes and canned cannellini beans with their aquafaba, and a bit of water. The beans will thicken the sauce and the water will prevent any starch from burning onto the bottom of the pot. Cover the pot with a lid and set it to simmer gently for 15 minutes. Every five minutes or so, stir the sauce and smash some beans with your spoon. Sometimes I use a potato masher if I have stubborn beans. If your sauce is getting too thick add a couple tablespoons of water. Once most of the beans have broken up and the sauce is the right consistency, taste it. If it needs more salt or seasonings, adjust it now. Then toss in the pasta and serve.

Note that the beans will leave behind their skins, so the sauce will always have some subtle texture to it. This doesn’t bother me, but if you want the sauce to be silkier, push the beans through a strainer (the holes shouldn’t be too small) before you add them to the sauce. The starchy pulp will go through and the skins will be left behind. 

The following recipe makes two servings, and it’s my lazy version of the above. I don’t always have the perfect ingredient list, but the lesson here is that there’s usually some kind of replacement in my kitchen. If you think, “this could function the same way as that,” give it a try. Instead of pancetta, I had cold cut sliced ham. Instead of crushed tomatoes, I had a random unfinished jar of tomato sauce. And you know what? It rocks. 

Lazy Dairy-Free Vodka Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 shallot, minced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 slices ham, chopped

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon pepper flakes

• ¼ cup vodka

• ½ cup jarred tomato sauce

• ⅓ cup water

• ½ can cannellini beans with aquafaba

1. Add the olive oil to a medium pot and set the heat to medium-low. Add the shallot, garlic, ham, and salt. Stir and sauté for a couple minutes until the shallot becomes soft and translucent. 

2. Add the red pepper flakes and the vodka. Stir, and let the liquid reduce by 50%. This will only take about a minute. 

3. Stir in the tomato sauce, beans and aquafaba, and water. Cover the pot with a lid and reduce the mixture to a simmer. Stir the sauce every five minutes, crushing beans as you stir. If the sauce ever gets too thick, add a splash of water to the mixture. After about 15 minutes the sauce should be thick, creamy, and ready to eat. Toss in your favorite pasta and serve immediately.

Five years ago I split my first apple in half, inspired by a video clip on the internet and the audacity to think that maybe, if I really believed in myself, I might be able to join the ranks of the apple-splitters. I achieved glory and success (the apple did in fact break in my hands) and I've been riding that high ever since. Today, I return to retell that story and provide an innovation: a way to cheat if your apple-splitting is not going as well as you hoped.

What do you mean, split an apple?

I mean you break it in half, in a way that looks like it could have been cut with a knife. Right down the middle. Here's a video of Paul Rudd wowing the internet with this feat (and, be warned, using some adult language in the process). Amazing! What human being can do that? Surely nobody but Paul Rudd!

Tweet may have been deleted

I love a good feat of strength and/or skill. In fact, the only thing I love more is hearing that it may be more accessible than at first I assumed. (See also: my brief obsessions with bending nails and flipping kettlebells.) So I was intrigued when strength coach Adam Fisher provided a different perspective:

Tweet may have been deleted

I don’t mean to diminish the accomplishment of cracking open an apple. It is a feat of strength, and not everybody can do it. But far more people can do it than probably suspect they can. It turns out, Adam is right.

I saw his tweet while I was at a conference, and there was a giant basket of apples in the lobby, so I could test out the apple-splitting trick ASAP. I watched a few YouTube videos on apple splitting, but ultimately it is the apple that teaches you.

How to crack that apple

First, if you have small hands, choose a small apple. And make sure the apple is a crunchy one; a fresh Honeycrisp works well. (My first try was a medium size Gala, and it was tough but I got it.) Consider removing the stem, not for any mechanical advantage but just so it won’t poke you as you are squeezing.

Then:

1. Locate the squishy, meaty muscle at the base of your thumb. Wedge the thumb meat of both hands into the divot at the top of the apple.

2. Compress the apple top to bottom as hard as you can. It may help to press the apple against your knee or another convenient surface.

3. While doing this, pull the apple apart, like opening a book.

If you run into trouble, try a smaller or crispier apple.

And don’t get discouraged. I grabbed three Gala apples from the basket at the hotel, and was only able to crack one of them. Later, when I got home, I bought a bag of small Honeycrisps and was able to split them so easily that I did a few in a row for my kids and then encouraged them to try. None of them quite managed, but I told them all to try again next year when they have grown a bit bigger. Then, suddenly nobody wanted to eat any of the apples, so I’m over here gnawing on them all by myself. Anyway. Give it a try—you might surprise yourself!

How to make the apple easier to split (aka how to cheat)

Look closely—there are two fingernail gouges on the top surface of the apple. Credit: Beth Skwarecki

I sat down with an apple today, thinking my only job was to take a new photo to update this post. But the apple I had on hand--a Kanzi--wasn't cooperating. What to do? I could get some different apples at the store. I could treat this as a strength performance (which it kind of is) and schedule an apple-splitting session for a day I was better rested. Or maybe I could just cheat.

I know from experience that the apple-splitting phenomenon starts with a small, audible crack. You'll hear a soft noise as it begins to split apart, and if you keep applying pressure, all of a sudden the rest of the apple will give.

So what if I give that initial split just a little bit of help? I didn't have a knife within reach, so I dug my thumbnail into the top of the apple, along the line where I imagined it would break. Then I returned to my apple-splitting efforts.

As I predicted, the cracking noise began almost immediately. My cheat didn't make the apple easy to split, but it seemed to get my foot in the door, so to speak. I kept the pressure on, and soon the apple cracked in half just as I was hoping. A few fingernail gouges would be easy to apply surreptitiously if you're doing this trick in front of friends, and honestly you're still splitting an apple in half with no tools other than your bare hands. I hereby deem this a not-too-cheaty-cheat. So go forth and split an apple, ya cheater.

Apple used to tout the fact that Macs didn't get viruses, and while Apple definitely has good anti-malware software, their machines are far from impervious to infection. And with Macs more popular than ever, there exists even more potential malware out there, ready to steal your data and ruin your day. The latest can even take screenshots of what's on your Mac's monitor without your knowledge.

Researchers from Kandji have discovered the threat targeting Macs, and it's not great news. Kandji reports this new malware, which they've named "Cuckoo," is a mix between spyware and an infostealer. They discovered it in apps hosted by a site called "DumpMedia," which purported to convert songs on streaming services into MP3s.

When researchers downloaded one of these apps, they noticed the DMG, which allows you to install the app on your Mac, had different installation instructions than most DMGs: Rather than dragging the app to your Applications folder, this DMG instructed users to right click on the app and choose "Open." Unbeknownst to many users, this action bypasses some of the security features that serve as the first lines of defense for newly installed apps downloaded from the web.

Rather than follow these suspicious instructions, researchers choose "Show Package Contents" so they could see what the app was hiding. While they did find a legitimate-looking "DumpMedia Spotify Music Converter" bundle, they also found a suspicious executable file that had no developer ID. That would normally trip Apple's Gatekeeper program to block the app from opening—hence why the malicious developers prompted potential victims to unwittingly bypass these protections.

Researchers then tested the software by opening it, and found it immediately started gathering information about the machine and running a long list of processes. Interestingly, the program will not continue if it detects the computer is based in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, or Ukraine. After more processes, it sneakily asks for your password with a "macOS needs to access System Settings" prompt. Once you enter it, the programs saves your password. It then checks to make sure the password is correct.

From here, the program asks for permission to access Finder, Downloads, and your microphone, then continues to scrape details about your Mac's hardware, before scraping files from Safari (including bookmarks, cookies, and history), Notes, and Keychain (which contains your passwords). As if that weren't invasive enough, the malware then initiates the screenshot function, even muting your speakers whenever it takes a screenshot so you don't hear the sound and realize what's happening.

All the while, there is an actual program running as advertised, keeping the victim in the dark about all the nefarious processing churning away in the background. According to researchers, DumpMedia is just one site hosting these malicious apps. Others, such as TuneSolo, FoneDog, TunesFun, and TuneFab, all host similar streaming-converter apps, as well as Android recovery tools that feature the same malware.

How to protect your Mac from this and other malware

This story serves as a good reminder to be careful when downloading apps directly from the web onto your devices, whether that's a Mac, PC, Android, or an iOS device (in the E.U., anyway). While there are plenty of legitimate apps on the internet (as opposed to in an app store like Google Play or the iOS App Store), there are many that are not, so it's important to vet each program before downloading it.

Research the app, and see if others have had positive experiences with both it and its host site. Speaking of which, it's safest to download apps from the developer itself: If DumpMedia is hosting a third-party app, for example, that's riskier than if the app's developer offers it directly.

In addition, never skirt your Mac's built-in malware defenses. You might not have known that right-clicking on an app and opening rather than dragging it to the Applications folder bypasses Gatekeeper, but it does. If you follow the normal process and macOS says there's a problem with the app, believe it. Download your apps from the official Apple App Store when you can, and when you can't, exercise extra caution.

There are few brands that are as synonymous with e-readers as Kindles are, and for good reason. Kindles are arguably the best e-readers in the market today, and right now, you can get the Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Scribe for up to $105 off after dropping to some of their lowest prices in recent months. The deals come during an Amazon device sale for Mother's Day. These Kindles are my favorite Amazon deal of the day.

The Amazon Kindle for $79.99

Amazon Kindle

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The latest Amazon Kindle is enough for most people looking to take their stories with them. With 16 GB of storage, you can fit thousands of ebooks in its library. The 300 ppi high-resolution display makes it look like you're actually reading a printed book. It's also glare-free with a paper-like display that feels somewhat like paper. The battery lasts an impressive average of six weeks, depending on your use and brightness settings. You can get the Amazon Kindle for $79.99 (originally $99.99), matching the lowest price it has been over the last few months according to price-checking tools.

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite for $114.99

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

Now with a larger display, adjustable warm light, increased battery life, and faster page turns.

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For those more dedicated readers who want to take their e-readers places, the Kindle Paperwhite might be a better fit. It's a bit bigger, with a 6.8” display and thinner borders. The Paperwhite also gives you adjustable warm light to give your eyes a break from blue light if you like to read before bed. The battery is longer, with up to 10 weeks of juice, and the pages turn a bit faster than the Kindle. It is much brighter, with a front light of 17 LEDs over the Kindle's 4 LEDs. You can also submerge it underwater or read in the shower—it has a waterproof IPX8 rating. You can get the Kindle Paperwhite for $114.99 (originally $149.99).

The Kindle Scribe for $264.99

Amazon Kindle Scribe

10.2” 300 ppi Paperwhite display, a Kindle and a notebook all in one, convert notes to text and shar

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The Amazon Kindle Scribe is for those who like to be hands-on and take handwritten notes. As our Tech Writer Joshua Hawkins said in his review, the Kindle Scribe is one of the best e-readers you can buy. It has the same features as the Paperwhite but also has an auto-adjusting light and wireless charging (and can take notes with the included stylus, of course). The Kindle Scribe is available for its lowest price yet: $264.99 (originally $369.99).

Following fan backlash, Sony is canceling a planned update for the popular multiplayer game Helldivers 2 that would have required players who purchased the game on PC to link their copies to PSN accounts—which, if the name didn't clue you in, is generally something people only have if they game on a PlayStation console.

Tweet may have been deleted

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the company credited “feedback” for the change and said it is still “learning what is best for PC players.”

While PSN (short for PlayStation Network) accounts are free to create and do not require account holders to actually own a PlayStation console, the proposed update proved controversial among the Helldivers community, with user reviews on Steam dropping from “Mostly Positive” to “Overwhelmingly Negative” over the weekend. As of writing, the game currently holds a “Mixed” rating.

Were the update to go through, new players would have had to link their accounts by May 30, and existing players would have needed to do so by June 4.

Why are people mad at Helldivers 2?

Following news of the update, Steam pulled the PC version of Helldivers 2 from purchase in 177 countries, as PSN does not operate in those regions. If the update went live, players in those regions who had already bought the game would have needed to circumvent Sony’s terms of service to continue playing.

Affected areas include Jamaica, Bangladesh, Belarus, and almost the entirety of Africa. Even Sony’s home country of Japan was impacted–the game is available via a “separate package,” but users are not able to buy the “global version.”

“Ouch, right in the review score,” stated Johan Pilstedt, CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios. “Well, I guess it’s warranted.”

Tweet may have been deleted

Pilstedt followed up his post with another saying that the Arrowhead was “talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries”

What happens next for Helldivers 2?

Pilstedt followed today’s news that the Helldivers 2 update would not be going forward by first expressing how impressed he was with the community for its ability to collaborate, before thanking PlayStation for “quickly and effectively making the decision to leave PSN linking optional.”

Tweet may have been deleted

According to Pilstedt, the team knew six months prior to launch that PSN linking would be required at some point, and that the decision to make it optional at launch would only be temporary.

Unfortunately, Helldivers 2 is still not available for purchase in the countries where it was pulled, but those who had already purchased the game will not lose access to it. "I'm speaking to our partners at Playstation and Valve and pushing for it [the delisting] to be undone," Pilstedt told a fan over Discord. "Getting the account linking [changed] took a herculean effort — but I won't rest in my desire to have it available everywhere."

Are you able to dive into battle to protect Super Earth? Here's how to connect a PlayStation controller to PC, plus some of our favorite PlayStation accessories.

• Playstation DualSense Edge Wireless Controller

• PlayStation Pulse Elite Wireless Headset

• PlayStation Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds

When you move in the real world, you usually fill out a change of address form with the post office, and boom!—your mail appears at your new home. If only it was as easy to change your email address. Whether you’re leaving an outdated service, moving to a new job, or just want to get rid of the silly username you created in high school, here’s how to make the transition to a new email address simple and orderly.

Pick an email you’ll actually keep

First, make sure your new email address is one you’ll actually use for a long time. That might involve finally getting your own domain and associating your email address with your real name. Something like firstname@lastname.com has a lot more staying power than yourname@yahoo.com. This way, you won’t deal with an email provider and you don’t have to worry about changing your email address ever again.

That might sound daunting to set up, but it’s actually pretty easy to get your own domain name and set up an email address you can use in a more familiar interface like Gmail (or your app of choice). Having an email address through your domain registrar might cost you a little extra each month for the privilege, but it’s a small price to pay for a custom email.

If you don’t want to spend the money on a domain, we’d recommend going with one of the big free providers like Gmail or Outlook. Basically, you want to avoid the email address you get from your school, the email address your ISP gives you, or your company’s email address. Work and school emails are fine, but they might not last forever. You need something you can always come back to.

As for your actual email address, make it as easy to remember and as “grown-up” as possible. That means avoiding cringe-worthy names like “thorinsparkles2000@gmail.com” or “zeldafan1969@outlook.com.”

Instead, stick to some variation of your given name whenever possible. You can add something to it if it’s already taken on whatever service you choose, but don’t use something potentially embarrassing or anything that gives away too many personal details about you: your birth year, your political affiliation, or your favorite sports team, for example.

Migrate your old inbox to your new one

In a lot of cases, you can migrate your old emails and contacts to your new email address pretty easily. We can’t cover how to do this with every single webmail and domain provider out there, but here’s how you’d migrate to a new account with Gmail. (The process should be pretty similar with other services.)

How to migrate your email to Gmail

Once you set up a new Gmail account, you can import email and contacts into that account like so:

• Sign in to your Gmail account and click the gear icon, then select Settings.

• Open the Accounts and import tab.

• In the “Check mail from other accounts” section, select Add a mail account.

Credit: Emily Long

• Enter your old email address, click Next, make a selection, and hit Next again.

• Select the options you want (label incoming messaging, always use a secure connection, etc.).

Credit: Emily Long

• Click Add Account.

All your old emails will now be pulled into your new account. You’ll also get any new emails that come through, so you don’t need to worry about email forwarding. This process can be a little slow, so if you need to get the emails still going to your old address quickly, we’d recommend setting up a forwarding system on your old email account as well (see the next section for how to do that).

Gmail also has a separate “Import mail and contacts” option that can also pull in the aforementioned data from other accounts. Consider giving this a try, too.

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Keep your old email alive—set up email forwarding

Next, it’s time to set up a system so that anything sent to your old email account gets forwarded to your new one. You’ll need to do this on your old email account (if you switched to Gmail, you already set this up in the last step). This is different for each email provider, but here’s how to set up email forwarding from Gmail and Outlook.

How to set up email forwarding from your old Gmail account

Credit: Emily Long

If you switch from Gmail to another service, you want to forward those emails to a new account. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open Gmail and click the gear icon.

2. Select Settings.

3. Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

4. Click Add a forwarding address.

5. Enter your new email address.

6. Click Next > Proceed > OK.

7. You’ll get a verification email at your new email address—click the link to confirm.

8. Refresh your browser and go back to Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Forwarding > Forward a copy of incoming mail to to select what you want to have happen to the Gmail copy of your messages.

Now, when someone emails you at your old Gmail address, you’ll receive that email at your new email address. If you want to receive only select forwarded emails, you can set up filter-specific email forwards so you don’t bring along any junk or spam to your new email.

How to set up email forwarding from your old Outlook account

Credit: Emily Long

Email forwarding is easy to set up in Outlook:

1. At the top of the page in your web browser, select the Settings gear icon.

2. Select Mail > Forwarding.

3. Select Enable forwarding and enter your new email address.

4. Select Save.

Now, any email sent to your old Outlook address will go to your new one.

Update your email address on all your accounts

One of the biggest pains with a new email address is that you have to update your information in all your online accounts. This means you need to log in and change your email address everywhere on the web—from Facebook to your bank. It’s tough to remember everywhere you have accounts.

This process is much easier if you use a password manager, which should give you a long list of all the sites where you have accounts. Take an afternoon to log in to each of them and update your email address. And don’t forget to update your info in your preferred password manager while you’re at it so it isn’t using your old email address for your logins.

If you don’t use a password manager, it’s a little harder to find all your accounts. The easiest way to do this is to search through your old email for phrases like “confirm your email,” “unsubscribe,” “your new account” or “welcome to.” This should provide you with a solid list of websites you have accounts at, email newsletters you’ve subscribed to, and just about everything else.

Tell your friends and family

Finally, it’s time to break it to your friends and family that they need to update their address books with your new email address.

Depending on how many people you need to contact and your relationship with them, you might want to send out a few different emails to announce your big change: one for your family, one for friends, and one for business associates. Send the emails from your new email address and BCC everyone else on your list so you don’t accidentally share a bunch of email addresses that people might not want shared.

Finally, it’s time to throw an auto-responder on your old email address and let it die gracefully. Just head into your old account and create one (it’s also known as a vacation responder in some services) with a message that tells recipients about your new email address.

Credit: Emily Long

In some cases, you might need to follow up on your change-of-address email to make sure your initial note didn’t end up in someone’s spam or junk folder, but you should now be well on your way to ditching that old email address and moving on to something you’ll actually want to keep for a long while.

Everything is more expensive these days, but the rising cost of electricity is especially irritating because it’s so fundamental to modern life. When energy costs spike it can feel like just existing has become too expensive, and when you have to pause to calculate the cost of basic necessities, life can feel kind of exhausting.

The kitchen is a prime suspect when it comes to your rising electricity bill; it costs between $391 and $1,777 annually to run your kitchen, depending on where you live—and about 75% of appliance energy use happens when they’re turned off, so you can try to reduce your electricity usage by unplugging them when they’re not in use. But if you want to reduce that bill even further, you can take the extra step and get rid of some of the most common electric appliances altogether, replacing them with hand-powered alternatives (or, in some cases, foot-powered).

Your own hands

Dishwashers are much better than hand-washing dishes in just about every way, especially if you choose one with a solid energy rating—but if you’re looking to save money on your utilities, hand-washing your dishes in cold water will save you about $45 a year. Is that a lot? Not by itself—but if it’s part of an overall hand-powered plan it can add up.

Hand-cranked washing machine

Washing machines and dryers have become so prevalent we forget that you can easily wash and dry your clothes without any electricity or natural gas at all. Hand-cranked or foot-powered washing machines combined with air-drying your laundry on a drying rack or a clothesline can save you about $115 annually and will do just as good of a job of keeping your clothes clean.

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Pour-over coffee maker

By unplugging your at-home coffee making, you can save yourself about $14 annually. A fancy manual espresso maker like this one from Rok makes excellent espresso shots with zero electricity, and a simple pour-over coffee maker will brew plenty of java with zero electricity (though you’ll have to heat up the water somehow, admittedly). Combine them with a hand-powered coffee grinder and you can remove the electric tax from your morning cuppa altogether.

A foot-cranked blender

You’re not going to hand-crank a blender, no—but you can foot-crank a blender. A Fender Blender is designed to attach to a stationary bicycle, using your leg power to blend whatever you need blended. It actually works much better than you might imagine, as you can see here—and you get a little exercise to justify whatever treat you’re mixing up for yourself.

The cost to run a blender depends on how often you use it (and your local cost for electricity, of course), but if you use your blender once a day for a year you could save about $15 by going with the hand-powered version.

A good old whisk

Using a mixer every day will cost you about $12 annually, and using an electric egg beater daily offers a similar cost savings, so substituting a hand-powered whisk and mixer can save you about $24 a year.

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Hand-powered foot chopper

Using a food processor only costs you about $2 a year unless you’re running your processor constantly. Still, that’s $2 you don’t have to spend if you use a hand-powered food chopper/processor instead.

Total savings

On average, you’d save about $215 every year by using these hand-powered tools instead of their electric versions—although that number might grow if the price of electricity keeps going up. Plus, of course, having a hand-powered kitchen and laundry means power outages, blackouts, and societal collapse won’t slow you down—throw in a hand-cranked generator and radio and you’ll ride out the apocalypse in style.

YouTube is always trying out new features for its users, which they call experiments. The latest experimental feature is called Jump Ahead, which uses AI to skip to the "best" part of a YouTube video for you.

The new feature works in conjunction with the double tap feature already available in the YouTube app on Android or iOS, which lets you hop forward in a video in 10-second increments until you've reached the portion that interests you.

The Jump Ahead feature analyzes that user watch data and couples it with machine learning algorithms to automatically detect what it believes is the next "best" point in a video that a viewer may be interested in. It then offers a prompt to take you to that point via an onscreen Jump Ahead button.

YouTube says the Jump Ahead feature works for creators when watching their own videos, even if they aren't currently subscribed to YouTube Premium. For the rest of us, Jump Ahead is currently being tested with YouTube Premium subscribers in the U.S. (It was previously available to a small group of Premium subscribers to test.) In addition to a YouTube Premium membership, you also need the Android version of the YouTube app. The feature is currently limited to English-language videos, so videos in other languages won't work at this time.

Previously, YouTube introduced similar functionality in the form of a graph integrated into a video's progress bar that shows you the "most replayed" parts of that video. Initially, the most replayed feature was similarly exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers, so there's always a chance that, if proven popular and effective, Jump Ahead could become an all-access option in the future. There's no word as to when the feature will roll out more widely, but the experiment supposedly ends on June 1, so we will see what YouTube decides to do at that time. Last year, the company also tested, then removed, then reintroduced the option to watch any video in double speed by pressing and holding on the video player from within the YouTube app.

When you finally decide to declutter and organize your home, the initial clearing out and restructuring is important (and so satisfying), but keeping things in order going forward will pose a greater challenge. To lead a more organized and decluttered life over the long haul, focus on three pillars that form the Organizational Triangle.

What is the organizational triangle?

The Organizational Triangle was conceptualized by pro organizer Andrew Mellen, the man behind The Most Organized Man in America's Guide to Moving and Unstuff Your Life: Kick the Clutter Habit and Completely Organize Your Life for Good. While Mellen writes and speaks about all manner of organization and decluttering, he describes the Organizational Triangle as "the foundation" of all of his work. This three-tiered approach provides a simple process for maintaining a clutter-free home:

• Every item needs a home

• Keep like with like

• Use a something in, something out approach

Keep these three tenets in mind during your initial decluttering, and going forward as well, so your place stays neat and won’t require another big clean in a year or so. Here's a deeper look at what each step involves.

Step 1: Every item needs a home

This step is crucial when you’re first starting out. No matter which of the many available cleaning techniques you choose to follow, you’ll almost certainly end up categorizing your possessions by whether you want to keep, throw out, donate, or sell them. When aligning your clearing out with the tenants of the Organizational Triangle, you’ll need to closely assess anything you decide you want to keep. 

That's because every item in your home should have its designated space, whether that’s a certain drawer, cabinet, basket, or shelf. If you can’t think of a permanent home for something, you either need to make one or get rid of that thing. Nothing should be floating around, moving from space to space, or otherwise homeless within your home. The reason for this is simple: Anything you want to access should be somewhere you'll know to look for it. It should only ever be in one of two places: in its designated spot, or in your hands. Decluttering is useless if the items that remain end up piled on a table or aren’t easy to find when you actually need them. 

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Step 2: Keep like with like

The second step is to reorganize your space to keep alike things together, always. For instance, don’t keep some screwdrivers in the garage and others in the kitchen, even though it seems intuitive to imagine that when you need a screwdriver while doing an indoor task, it will be handier to have one closer to you. Don’t keep a basket of batteries in each room; put them all together. Etc. 

If you have AA batteries in a drawer in your living room in case you need them for the remote, but all your other batteries in a basket in a kitchen cabinet, you might not remember where to find those AA batteries when the remote for the fan in your bedroom goes out. You’ll go to search the kitchen basket, find nothing, and buy AA batteries from the store, wasting money. Meanwhile, the batteries in the living room will be yet more clutter. 

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Step 3: Something in, something out

Something in, something out is a tried-and-true organizational method you should only employ once you have finished an initial round of decluttering and are moving forward into a more organized lifestyle. But it's pretty basic: When you get something new, get rid of something old to make space for it. If you’re following the Organizational Triangle’s rules, you know there needs to be a spot for everything, but space is finite. Don’t cram too much into your shelves and drawers or else they’ll end up cluttered, too. 

If a lot of items fit into a space, that’s great, but in most cases, you need to be strategic about how much stuff you accumulate. If you can only use one of a thing at a time and you’re committed to following the above rules about putting every item back in its place when you’re done using it, there's no point in having more than one. Accumulating multiples of objects only makes it easier for you to slack on the rule about putting things back where they belong after use. Following a something in, something out rule can also act as a check on your impulse buying habit, since you'll know that buying something new means getting rid of something old.

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