Slack users across the web—on Mastodon, on Threads, and on Hackernews—have responded with alarm to an obscure privacy page that outlines the ways in which their Slack conversations, including DMs, are used to train what the Salesforce-owned company calls "Machine Learning" (ML) and "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) systems. The only way to opt out of these features is for the admin of your company's Slack setup to send an email to Slack requesting it be turned off.
The policy, which applies to all Slack instances—not just those that have opted into the Slack AI add-on—states that Slack systems "analyze Customer Data (e.g. messages, content and files) submitted to Slack as well as Other Information (including usage information) as defined in our privacy policy and in your customer agreement."
So, basically, everything you type into Slack is used to train these systems. Slack states that data "will not leak across workspaces" and that there are "technical controls in place to prevent access." Even so, we all know that conversations with AI chatbots are not private, and it's not hard to imagine this going wrong somehow. Given the risk, the company must be offering something extremely compelling in return...right?
What are the benefits of letting Slack use your data to train AI?
The section outlining the potential benefits of Slack feeding all of your conversations into a large language model says this will allow the company to provide improved search results, better autocomplete suggestions, better channel recommendations, and (I wish I was kidding) improved emoji suggestions. If this all sounds useful to you, great! I personally don't think any of these things—except possibly better search—will do much to make Slack more useful for getting work done.
The emoji thing, particularly, is absurd. Slack is literally saying that they need to feed your conversations into an AI system so that they can provide better emoji recommendations. Consider this actual quote, which I promise you is from Slack's website and not The Onion:
Slack might suggest emoji reactions to messages using the content and sentiment of the message, the historic usage of the emoji and the frequency of use of the emoji in the team in various contexts. For instance, if 🎉 is a common reaction to celebratory messages in a particular channel, we will suggest that users react to new, similarly positive messages with 🎉.
I am overcome with awe just thinking about the implications of this incredible technology, and am no longer concerned about any privacy implications whatsoever. AI is truly the future of communication.
How to opt your company out of Slack's AI training
The bad news is that you, as an individual user, cannot opt out of Slack using your conversation history to train its large language model. That can only be done by a Slack admin, which in most cases is going to be someone in the IT department of your company. And there's no button in the settings for opting out—admins need to send an email asking for it to happen.
Here's Slack exact language on the matter:
If you want to exclude your Customer Data from Slack global models, you can opt out. To opt out, please have your org, workspace owners or primary owner contact our Customer Experience team at feedback@slack.com with your workspace/org URL and the subject line ‘Slack global model opt-out request’. We will process your request and respond once the opt-out has been completed.
This smells like a dark pattern—making something annoying to do in order to discourage people from doing it. Hopefully the company makes the opt-out process easier in the wake of the current earful they're getting from customers.
A reminder that Slack DMs aren't private
I'll be honest, I'm a little amused at the prospect of my Slack data being used to improve search and emoji suggestions for my former employers. At previous jobs, I frequently sent DMs to work friends filled with negativity about my manager and the company leadership. I can just picture Slack recommending certain emojis every time a particular CEO is mentioned.
Funny as that idea is, though, the whole situation serves as a good reminder to employees everywhere: Your Slack DMs aren't actually private. Nothing you say on Slack—even in a direct message—is private. Slack uses that information to train tools like this, yes, but the company you work for can also access those private messages pretty easily. I highly recommend using something not controlled by your company if you need to shit talk said company. Might I suggest Signal?
So, you just set up a brand new Apple Watch. Apple’s popular wearable is an awesome extension of your iPhone, and it comes packed with features that span health, fitness, communication, and entertainment. But before you dive into all of those fun and exciting options, there are 10 things you should probably do first to maximize your watch straight out of the box.
By default, your Apple Watch’s sound is turned on. At first, it’s fun to listen to all the unique chimes and tones that Apple put into its wearable. After a while, though, it might become irritating, especially if you do have a lot of notifications. (More on this later.) If you’re someone who usually keeps their iPhone on silent, you might want to consider the same for the watch.
To mute your watch, just wake it up, swipe up from the bottom, then tap the alarm bell icon in Control Center. To simply lower the volume, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics on the watch or in the Watch app, then use the volume icons to adjust accordingly. You can also access "Silent Mode" to mute notifications from here, if you want.
Set up your watch to unlock your Mac
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
If you have a Mac, especially a Mac without Touch ID, you’ll want to set this feature up. Whenever you wake up your Mac, whether by lifting up your MacBook’s lid or by pressing a key on your iMac, it’ll unlock right away, so long as your Apple Watch is unlocked on your wrist. For more info, check out this walkthrough from Lifehacker writer Khamosh Pathak.
Turn off notifications for apps you don’t want
Credit: Jake Peterson
The Apple Watch ships with a lot of notifications by default, especially if you have a lot of notifications set up on your iPhone. Luckily, it’s easy enough to manage these notifications specifically on the watch.
Open the Watch app on your iPhone and go to Settings > Notifications. Here, go through all apps and disable notifications for any you no longer wish to see. Tailoring this experience is key to fully enjoying your Apple Watch: If you don’t want to see any more breathing reminders, but you do want to see your Messenger alerts, you’ll be happy you took the time here.
If there are apps from your iPhone on your watch that you don’t want there, just get rid of them! If you told your watch to download all available apps from your iPhone, you might have way more options than you really need. Deleting these apps will make finding the apps you do want to use much easier, since there won’t be a sea of irrelevant options every time you open the app view.
You can remove apps from your Apple Watch by long-pressing on an app on your watch and tapping the (X) that appears, just like on your iPhone. Alternatively, you can open the Watch app, scroll down to the list of installed apps, tap the app you want to remove, and hit the toggle on Show App on Apple Watch to confirm.
Set up cellular (if you have a cellular Apple Watch)
Credit: Jake Peterson
If you have a cellular Apple Watch, it won’t simply give you free cellular connectivity out of the box. Instead, you’ll need to buy a cellular plan through your carrier. You can initiate this process from Settings > Cellular on the watch, or through your iPhone’s Watch app.
Aren’t sure if you have a cellular Apple Watch? There are two easy ways to tell: You’ll only see the Cellular settings page in the Watch app if you have a connected cellular watch. In addition, the red ring on the cellular watch’s crown is a dead giveaway.
For the longest time, Apple didn't have a native sleeping-tracking feature for the watch. If you wanted to track your sleep with your Apple Watch, you were forced to use a third-party app instead. These days, you can track your sleep habits using built-in tools, but they need to be set up first. You can learn more about it in Lifehacker Senior Health Editor Beth Skwarecki's guide here.
Save some battery
Credit: Jake Peterson
If you have a newer Apple Watch, it likely comes with an Always On display. With it, you can quickly glance at your watch to tell the time, look for new notifications, or read data from your watch face without having to wake up the watch at all. While this feature is awesome, it does put a strain on the battery. To maximize your battery life, consider disabling it by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Always On.
I'd also recommend disabling Background App Refresh as well from General > Background App Refresh. While this feature can be helpful for keeping your various Apple Watch apps up to date with the latest content, it's another battery hog. You're probably better off just loading up the apps when you're interested in seeing what's new. You can go here for more Apple Watch battery-saving tips.
Learn the gestures
Your Apple Watch is a touch-screen device, but doesn't operate exactly like your iPhone. Here's how to navigate watchOS:
Quick-press Crown: Open app view
Long-press Crown: Activate Siri
Quick-press Side button: Pull up Control Center
Long-press Side button: Expanded menu, including Power, Medical ID, Compass Backtrack, and Emergency SOS
Swipe down from top of watch face: Notification Center
Swipe up from bottom of watch face: Widget view
Long-press watch face: Switch and customize watch faces
Cover watch face with palm: Put watch to sleep/mute notifications
There's also a gesture new to Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 called "double-tap": Whenever there's an action you need to tap on your watch face say, to, turn off a timer or answer a call, you can double tap your index finger against your thumb to act as a button press. Even if you don't have one of these watches, however, you can set up something similar through Accessibility settings.
Calibrate it
If you wanted an Apple Watch for fitness, you might have already recorded an exercise or two with it. However, it’s possible that those exercises weren’t recorded as accurately as they could be.
Apple doesn’t advertise it very clearly, but the Apple Watch actually needs to be calibrated in order to record the best and most accurate workouts. It’s not an intensive process—essentially, it boils down to a 20-minute outdoor walk or run in an open, flat environment—but without that calibration, your data might be a bit skewed.
While you're calibrating your workouts, make sure Fall Detection is at least enabled when you're exercising, if not all the time. The feature can contact emergency services on your behalf if the watch detects that you've fallen.
Charge it
If this is still day one using your new Apple Watch, and you haven’t yet, give that battery some juice. Most tech ships with a partially discharged battery, and the Apple Watch is no exception. If you want it to last the rest of the day, or even track your sleep on the first night, put it on the charger for a while. If you have a Series 7 or newer, you can take advantage of quick charging to fill up fast. For fast charging, you just need:
How cool would it be if we could prevent sunburn and skin cancer without sunscreen—just by eating certain natural foods? It’s a really attractive idea, which explains why it’s all over TikTok. Too bad it doesn’t actually work.
Can we quit it with the “sunscreen is toxic” bullshit already?
The food-as-sunscreen TikToks don’t always come out and say it, but they’re trading on the established myth of sunscreen being somehow bad for us. (You don’t want to know how many “akshully, sunscreen causes cancer” statements I had to scroll through while researching this article.)
As I’ve written before, this is not some kind of sensible risk management messaging. It’s complete nonsense. The harms of UV exposure are concrete and well-documented. The harms of sunscreen are unproven, mostly guesswork, and the occasional legitimate concern is on the level of “hey, it would be helpful to have more research to know if some types of sunscreen are safer than others.” This stuff is absolutely not on the level of “avoid sunscreen because it’s bad for you.”
What the science actually says about food and sun damage
The TikToks about natural sun protection give a laundry list of foods, saying vaguely that they protect from sun damage. Sometimes they’ll recommend a specific supplement. But they never go into detail about the things that are important to know when recommending a preventative treatment, like:
What dosage is needed to get the intended results?
Has this actually been tested in humans?
How much protection does the food or supplement give you, and how was that measured?
Does the protection start working immediately, and if not, how long does it take?
Does the effectiveness vary from person to person?
Does the protective ingredient break down over time, and is there a way to refresh its protection (equivalent to reapplying sunscreen)?
What are the downsides to the food or supplement when used in the recommended dosage?
For actual, FDA-approved sunscreens, there are answers to all of these questions. For the foods recommended on TikTok, there are not. Instead of this fully fleshed-out information, we just get statements like “Eat watermelons, tomatoes, walnuts, carrots…”
If you look into the research, none of it really supports the claims the TikTokers are making (or implying). For example, here is a study showing that an antioxidant found in walnuts can protect human skin cells from some of the effects of UV damage. Sounds promising, until you realize that the skin cells were not in humans, but rather are a human-derived mutant cell line (sounds weird, but it’s a very normal thing in science labs). The researchers made a walnut extract and combined it with the cells in cell culture plates, which are basically teeny-tiny test tubes. So to review: This study did not involve people, eating, walnuts (as a food), sunlight, or sunburn.
Here’s a more relevant study: Light-skinned, non-smoking volunteers ate 40 grams of tomato paste (about three tablespoons) along with 10 grams of olive oil every day. After 10 weeks, they showed less reddening of the skin in response to exposure to a UV lamp. That’s promising! Very cool! Heck, if you felt inspired and wanted to start eating tomato paste (going through a little can of it every 4 days), I wouldn’t stop you.
But pay attention to what the study didn’t find. It doesn’t tell us what results people with lighter or darker skin tones would get. It doesn’t tell us how this protection changes (or doesn’t) over time—would you get the same results at the end of the summer as at the beginning, if you used this as your only sun protection?
And, most importantly, it only found that the people who used tomato paste got less reddening of the skin. The tomato paste didn’t completely prevent sunburn. The TikTokers are talking about these foods as if they are magic potions, or get-out-of-sunburn-free cards. Even the most promising studies don’t back that up.
And of course everybody is selling a supplement
If there’s one thing wellness TikTokers love, it’s selling supplements. Supplements are cheap for manufacturers to make, easy to ship, straightforward to explain (“X is good for Y”) and anybody can throw up an affiliate link in their bio to get a cut of the profits.
And so it is with these allegedly sunburn-preventing supplements. The hot one right now is Heliocare, which of course has a “brand affiliate” program. It’s made from a fern called Polypodium leucotomos, and there is actually research (!) supporting the idea that it may help a little bit to lessen sunburn.
But, as with the tomato studies, the results are at the “hmm, kind of interesting” level. This isn’t something that will let you ditch your sunscreen if you’re being at all responsible about it. I’m looking at the graphs in the paper’s results, and honestly I’m not sure if I can see a difference in redness at the later timepoints. If the supplement only delays how long it takes for a sunburn to show up, that doesn’t seem very useful. (I might actually wonder if it’s worse, since that could lead you to stay out longer before you realize how bad a burn you’re developing.)
Again, a statistically detectable difference in redness is not the same as completely (or even mostly) preventing sunburn. It’s also worth noting that the dosage of Heliocare (one 240-milligram pill per day) is less than what was used in the study (7.5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight, which works out to be 528 milligrams for a 154-pound person, or over two pills’ worth). If you take three pills per day, that $34.99 bottle will only last you 20 days. I’m not seeing the advantage over just applying sunscreen normally.
While replacing cabinets can be expensive, if you have some wall space, or even some space in front of a window, you can add some shelves for less than $100—you just need these brackets ($49.99) and a 1x12 inch board ($33.28) to make a three-shelf fixture with a spot for hooks ($6.99) to hang kitchen utensils or mugs.
Since the bracket width is adjustable, these shelves are also perfect for spanning a window, like the one over your sink, to add storage in a tight space.
While you might not be able to overhaul your whole kitchen lighting system, you can update your fixtures easily enough. If you have a metal fixture, you can paint it with spray paint ($11.48) to give it a new finish. You can also try swapping out the shades ($31.99 for 6) or globes ($43.75 for 3) for an update to an existing light fixture.
When choosing new shades or globes, double check that you are getting the right size and attachment type for your fixture, and be wary of any products that don’t include that information in the product description. If you want something totally new, you can also swap your old fixture for a new one ($58.89).
Maximize your cabinet storage
Making the most of your existing cabinet storage can make your kitchen more practical without costing you much money. Choosing customizable hardware, like this pots and pans organizer ($20.98) will make it easier to fit your kitchen utensils in your existing storage space. You can also try these adjustable shelf pull-outs ($35.99) to make it easier to keep things at the back of your cabinet organized, and make it simpler to use all of your storage space.
To wrangle smaller items like spices and utensils, you can try these stackable storage baskets ($39.99) with a pull-out drawer design. Adding functionality to your kitchen can improve your daily experience while keeping your budget in check.
While you might not be able to replace your countertops for less than $100, you can give them a makeover.
Using a countertop refinishing kit, you can add an epoxy finish to your existing countertops. Refinishing kits come in faux granite ($66.76), patterns ($89.95) and solid colors ($49.98). Most kits will cover a 25 to 50 square foot area, but check the product label for coverage details so you get a kit that will work for your space. (While this project is definitely DIY accessible, you should be prepared to not use your countertops for three or four days to allow for proper curing time.)
Give your furniture a new look
Whether you have bar stools at your kitchen island, chairs at a kitchen table, or a bar cart for drinks, you can give your current furniture a makeover for much less than replacing it. For metal furniture, a can of spray paint ($6.04) can go a long way—just make sure to clean your surface and sand it with a fine grit sandpaper ($9.66) in order to create a good surface for your paint to bond to. You can revitalize wooden stools or table tops by adding a stenciled detail or some stripes.
To stencil your wooden furniture, choose a stencil ($15.99 for two) and some paint ($16.48), then use a stencil brush ($8.99 for three various sizes) to apply your paint. To get a clear outline from your stencil, tape it in place with some painter’s tape and use a dabbing motion with your brush. (If you’re not sure how your image will come out, you can practice on a piece of cardboard first before tackling the furniture.) For repeating patterns, make sure you get at least two stencils to make lining them up easier.
While most acrylic or interior latex paint is okay to use on wood furniture, using a product that’s designed for furniture, especially in a kitchen, is a good idea. Alternatively, a stenciling project is a good way to use up leftover paint from another project, so you can also opt to add a clear coat ($16.48) to seal your surface when you’re done painting. To add a stripe, use a straight edge to run a line of painter’s tape ($4.49) to each side of where you want the stripe. Then, use a brush ($7.95 for five various sizes) to apply your paint between your tape lines.
To fire up the voice assistant on your iPhone, you can say "Hey Siri" or simply "Siri," followed by your command. This has been true for a long time now, but Apple will finally let you change this to a custom trigger phrase of your choice "to launch shortcuts and complete complex tasks." This is not a blanket system-wide change coming with iOS 18, but it will allow you to set up custom phrases for some tasks in your workflow.
This means that although you won't be able to replace the "Hey Siri" command totally in iOS 18, you'll have the choice to make Siri do some things without calling it by its name.
iOS 18's big push for accessibility
We've written about iOS 18's accessibility features that Apple recently announced ahead of WWDC 2024, and one of these features is called Vocal Shortcuts. This will allow you to use custom phrases to trigger Siri. You'll also be able to launch shortcuts using custom phrases with iOS 18. The example Apple shared shows an iPhone using the phrase "Rings" to display your Activity Rings from the Apple Watch.
This is an accessibility feature designed to help people who face challenges with speech. It is a good example of why companies should invest more in improving accessibility—these features make the iPhone experience better for everyone. Vocal Shortcuts sounds like a great addition to the iPhone, but there are a few concerns that remain to be addressed.
Even the "Hey Siri" command gets triggered accidentally or sometimes isn't understood by the iPhone. It remains to be seen, then, how well Vocal Shortcuts work. There's always the chance that it ends up getting triggered by mistake, which could make the feature less useful. The screenshots shared by Apple show that it works just like Siri's setup process, where your iPhone will ask you to say the phrase a few times to learn how you say it. The Vocal Shortcut will be based on your speech, which should reduce the chances of firing up your shortcuts accidentally.
Cars are expensive—even used cars are no longer a cheap option. So it’s not too surprising that folks who live in areas where a car isn’t a total necessity might choose not to own one. Aside from the cost of buying, maintaining, and fueling a car, there’s also the car insurance, which costs anywhere from $53 to $192 per month on average, depending on the coverage you select.
But we live in a car-centric society, and not owning a car doesn’t mean you’ll never need a car. Luckily there are a lot of options when it comes to getting access to a vehicle for a short period of time, ranging from traditional car rentals to car-sharing apps to borrowing your friend’s car in a pinch. And you might assume that when you’re just using a car temporarily you don’t need your own liability insurance—but that’s not always true. Sometimes it’s a very good idea to buy something called Non-Owner Car Insurance.
Non-owner car insurance
Non-owner car insurance is secondary insurance—additional coverage that kicks in after primary insurance hits its limit. When you borrow or rent a car owned by someone else, their insurance covers the car even if you’re not officially listed on the policy. So why would you need your own policy? Because of liability: If you’re in an accident while driving someone else’s car and the damages exceed the base policy’s limits—or if the base policy denies the claim altogether—you’ll be on the hook for the extra costs.
Let’s say you borrow your friend’s car and their liability insurance has a $20,000 cap on bodily injury. You get into an accident and the other driver suffers $30,000 in medical bills as a result. If you don’t have any extra insurance, your friend’s insurance will pay out the $20,000—and you will have to come up with the rest. Considering the average cost of “evident” injury in a motor vehicle accident is $42,000 and “disabling” injuries can run to $162,000, it’s easy to see how getting into an accident without your own insurance can be problematic.
Like regular car insurance, non-owner car insurance starts off with basic liability and often includes the option to add on coverage for personal injury, medical payments, or uninsured motorist coverage. You’ll want to check with your insurer to make sure you know exactly what your policy covers.
Aside from the financial risk of driving any vehicle, there’s one other big reason you might consider non-owner car insurance if you borrow or rent cars regularly: your rates. If you’re temporarily without your own vehicle, buying non-owner car insurance can help keep your rates steady. If you go without car insurance for more than 31 days, your rates can jump up to 35%. Non-owner car insurance keeps your coverage current, which can pay off if you plan to own your own vehicle again soon.
Who needs it?
Just because you don’t currently own a car and occasionally have to borrow or rent one doesn’t mean you need non-owner car insurance. Here’s a guide to who needs it and who doesn’t:
Frequent rent or share. If you’re renting cars or using a car-sharing platform several times a month, you should probably carry non-owner insurance. If you rent a car once or twice a year when traveling or for a special need, it’s probably not necessary.
Occasional borrowing. If you borrow your friend’s car constantly, they should probably list you on their insurance as a driver, which means you don’t need non-owner insurance. If you borrow different cars from different people on a regular basis, however, you should probably get your own coverage as your use probably doesn’t qualify you as a listed driver.
Company car. If you drive a company car, check the terms of its insurance. Not all company cars are covered for personal use. If you’re driving the company-owned car on the weekends or when doing your weekly errands, you might need non-owner insurance to protect yourself in case of an accident.
Sunscreen does a great job of protecting our skinfrom rays that can cause skin cancer, as well as thickening and wrinkling of the skin as we age. But it also feels kind of greasy and goopy sometimes, especially when applied to the face, leaving many of us wondering if there might not be a better way to apply it. Sunscreen powders sound like a promising development. But do they work?
Sunscreens usually come in a lotion or spray format, but you can also find them in powder form. These products often come in a container with a built-in brush (kind of like a big floofy foundation brush) and tend to be more expensive than traditional sunscreens.
They're sometimes marketed alongside makeup, so you can use them as a setting powder with the extra benefit of SPF. Sometimes they're marketed toward parents of young kids, as an alternative to getting little ones to sit still for a lotion or spray application.
The ingredients are still legit sunscreens, and are typically mineral-based, with something like zinc oxide as the main active ingredient.
Powder sunscreen isn't effective on its own
Ultimately, the problem with any form of sunscreen is that you need to apply a lot of it to get the protection listed on the label—and you need to reapply it according to the directions, which usually means every two hours. A sunscreen lotion is the easiest to apply this way, even though most of us don’t come anywhere near meeting the recommended amounts. (That’s okay, though—if the SPF is high enough, we still get decent protection.)
That brings us to the problem with nontraditional sunscreens. Are you really going to apply enough of it that it can actually work as intended? This is especially unlikely when it comes to combination products. Will you really slather on a thick layer of sunscreen-infused bug spray every two hours? How about a thick layer of SPF-containing foundation?
I think you see where I’m going. Are you going to apply enough powder sunscreen to get the protection you’re looking for, and then reapply it when it’s time? It’s unlikely, especially if the powder is your main form of sunscreen. Below is a video of chemist Michelle Wong applying sunscreen powder to her hand to show how much you would need to get the labeled SPF.
When powder sunscreens make sense
So you won't be able to get the labeled protection from a comfortable layer of powder—does that mean sunscreen powder is useless? Here I must return to the one enduring rule of sun protection: The best sunscreen is the sunscreen you will wear. Powder sunscreens are a better-than-nothing option for reapplying sunscreen over your makeup, and many people will skip reapplying if they don’t have something that works on top of makeup.
Dermatologists recommend applying a layer of normal (cream) sunscreen first, then putting on your makeup; consider powder to be a tool for touch-ups. Unfortunately, it can’t be considered a replacement for your primary sunscreen.
Similarly, for kids, if powder is truly the only way you can get some sunscreen on your squirmy toddler, then a powder is better than nothing. But there are other ways to make sunscreen application easier on little ones—so don't just buy a bottle of powder and consider the problem solved.
There are all kinds of things that can affect air quality, including smog being trapped low to the ground by atmospheric conditions, industrial accidents, dust storms, volcanic eruptions, and wildfire smoke. While there’s nothing you can do to avoid breathing the air, you can be prepared for an air quality event and put together a kit to keep yourself and your family safe.
Find your local air quality monitor
You can access up-to-date air quality information on airnow.gov. The site can either use your device’s location or you can enter your zip code to find your local air quality. There are two features on the site—a dial and an interactive map—but the map is the more important feature because the tools it uses to analyze air quality are sometimes more advanced than the simple dial. You can also tune in to local news and weather to get updates on your air quality forecast.
Keep your doors and windows closed
If you determine that your local air quality is bad, you can help to mitigate the effects on your indoor air quality by keeping doors and windows closed. Limiting the circulation of outdoor air into your home can help to improve the air you’re breathing inside and allow HVAC and air purifiers to work better to clean the air.
Build an air quality emergency kit
To prepare for an air quality emergency, you should build yourself a kit that has items you will need and keep it in an accessible area for quick access. Your kit should include:
When building your kit, masks and respirators should have a NIOSH N-95 or P100 marking somewhere on the package to ensure that they are genuine. Make sure that the air filters and air purifiers you’re using are labeled with a MERV or CADR rating. These markings will tell you what type of particles they can handle and how big of a space they can function in. Choose an air purifier that’s designed to tackle the size room you’re using it in.
If you or a family member have lung or heart conditions, it’s important to have a plan for dealing with smoke and other air quality events. Because of the increased risk, you might choose to evacuate to a safer area, or you might have a specific room with extra precautions like an air purifier to retreat to in the event that your air quality becomes dangerous. Consult with your physician about the use of masks or respirators to come up with a plan in case you need to be outdoors.
Clean-up
Removing ash from wildfires or dust from a storm can cause particles to become airborne and pose a hazard to your lungs. Use gloves, an N95 mask or P100 respirator, and safety goggles to keep irritants and debris from posing a health risk. When cleaning up, you should wet down or dampen ash to reduce its likelihood of becoming airborne. You should also avoid using leaf blowers that can kick dust and ash up into the air. If you have ash in your yard, lightly watering your lawn will stick the ash to the ground and keep it from inundating storm drains. For cleaning up indoor areas, use a vacuum with a HEPA filter to keep from kicking particles up into the air. You might need to change your HVAC and vehicle air filters after an air quality event, as they can become clogged more quickly.
The File Explorer in Windows 11 has been having a rough time. The initial redesign from Windows 10 displaced familiar features and the right-click menu was truncated, as were the options in the ribbons menu.
A couple of updates later, things have improved somewhat, and Windows 11 finally added tab support in File Explorer. But if you’re annoyed by the lack of consistency in File Explorer, there’s a free, open-source, community-supported alternative that's a lot more customizable. It's simply called the Files app.
How to download the Files app for free
You can buy the Files app from the official Microsoft Store for $8, but it's also available completely free of cost from the developer's website, though it's a bit hidden: After opening the link, click the Classic installer button at the bottom of the page to start the free download.
But before you do that, I suggest you create a backup of your computer and all your important files just to be safe, given this is an app with permissions to directly edit all files on your computer.
The Files app wins with its design
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
There's no shortage of File Explorer alternatives (XYPlorer being a popular choice), and this was the case even before Windows 11. But none of them feature as modern or polished a design as the Files app. It takes its cues from Microsoft's Fluent design system, and looks even better on Windows 11 than Microsoft's own File Explorer, which feels like a cheaply re-skinned version of the Windows 10 File Explorer.
This emphasis on design continues with its customization options, of which there are plenty. You can choose from a couple of default themes, or have fun choosing color and transparency effects that work for you. And the dark mode is divine.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
If you're looking for a form factor closer to macOS, you can switch to the Column view. Like Finder on Mac, this app also has a quick preview feature that allows you to peek into photos and PDFs by pressing the Space bar (doing this in the File Explorer requires a third-party app.)
My favorite part though, is the fact that you can make the icons and previews extra, extra large, so you can see what's in an image, or a PDF without even going through the quick look menu —something that's just not possible with the native File Explorer app.
The Files app is a great file manager
The intuitive UI in Files app also translates to the functionality. The tabbed browsing is fast and easy to navigate, and it has Dual Pane support (you can add a pane to a tab from the Menu button). This feature splits every single window into two. The second pane shows quick shortcuts, and allows you to browse to any folder. From there, simply drag and drop files, rearrange, or edit however you like.
The dual-pane layout makes transferring files a breeze, and you won't need to worry about window management either. The Details button is yet another nice touch. The sidebar can show a preview, and details of the selected file.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
As mentioned above, the Column view is another useful way to navigate deeper into a complex folder structure without losing context, as you can see the parent folder to the left.
Another macOS Finder feature that works well in the Files app is Tagging support. Tags can be created from the sidebar, and multiple tags can be assigned to an single file. When you open a tag from the sidebar, it will show all the files related to the tag. This is a great way to pool in files from different folders, without actually moving them.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
The Files app works with OneDrive and Google Drive by default, you can see all the files stored in your cloud storage account, and it can preview and unzip files. You can add support for other services like iCloud Drive and Dropbox.
Added functionality comes at a cost
From the Advanced settings, you can make the Files app your default file management app if you like. It can be used to open folders from Search, and even when downloading files. (Because of a Windows limitation, it can't be used when you're uploading files in the browser, but it can be the default file manager all everywhere else.)
But the question is, should you use Files as the default app? That will depend on your computer. The Files app is modern, and feature-rich, but it can also be a drag on your resources. It's slow to boot up the first time, and it can be really slow when you're batch-renaming files. But if you have a fast enough desktop PC, you won't feel the pinch.
Overall, its intuitive design, added navigation features, and the fact that it's available for free (competitive apps in the space usually cost $25), makes it well worth trying out—and a lot better than the Windows 11 standard.
Twitter changed its name to "X" back in July of 2023. But while the site has taken the past 10 months to slowly adjust to its new name and logo, two things have remained constant: All of us still call it "Twitter," and the site's URL is still twitter.com.
It seems the times really are a-changin' though: As of today, twitter.com is officially x.com. Elon Musk confirmed the transition in a post (formerly known as a "tweet") on X (formerly known as Twitter):
But while Musk says "All core systems are now on X.com," it doesn't appear to be the case for everyone. For example, when I fire up twitter.com out of pure, unwavering habit, the site loads right up without redirecting. For me, it's still Twitter, even if in URL only. (The X logo is still very much fixed to the top of the page, which I suppose is at least better than Doge.)
On the flip side, if I type in the new x.com domain, it loads up just fine as well. It even makes a big deal about me visiting x.com itself, with a banner thanking me for checking out the new URL. It seems like the site really wants to encourage me to continue visiting x.com rather than twitter.com, even though the latter should automatically redirect to the former.
I'm sure once X's skeleton crew figures out how to force Twitter URLs to be X URLs, that will be that, until the site runs out of money and folds. I, for one, think typing x.com is not only stupid, it feels like I'm about to visit a very different kind of site—which, at this point, might be true, considering the types of bots that plague X as of late.
Here is the secret to how I stay sane, even on the busiest day: Multiple Google Chrome profiles. Right now, I have four. One is tied to my personal Gmail, one is for my school, one is for work here at Lifehacker, and one is for another endeavor I help out with. I’ve even color-coded them so when I toggle back and forth, I get a little visual cue that I’m switching gears. I can’t recommend this method enough to stay organized in all the different parts of your life, and here’s why.
Why have multiple Chrome profiles?
The first and most obvious reason I don’t want to use the same browser profile for everything is that the amount of tabs I’d have open at one time would overwhelm me. In my personal browser, I work on things like my bills, my side jobs, my hobbies, my interests, social media, and keeping up with my friends and family. In my school profile, I am logged into sites that help me make bibliographies, access libraries of journal articles, and check my grades. For work, I use my profile to check my email, research for stories, write the stories, and log into our story editor. In fact, I’m not logged into social media on the school or work profiles, logged into anything for school on the personal or work profiles, or logged into anything related to my job on the personal or school profiles. This helps me keep it all separate without having to close tabs for space, plus it helps me stay focused on whatever I’m working on, since I can’t as easily open social media when I’m writing an essay or respond to a school email when I’m at work. Each profile is associated with a specific Google account, so it contains a unique Gmail inbox and access to Google Docs, too. Not having my personal documents, work documents, and school documents all mashed together in the same Drive helps me keep them all much more organized.
My fourth profile is for a separate business endeavor I do with other people. We’re all logged into that same profile, which makes collaboration really easy. We can update the Google Calendar, see important emails, and coordinate responses, plus have a shared search history, bookmarks, etc.
I really like this level of separation. Like I said, I even downloaded different colored themes for each profile. When I’m seeing the lilac-colored theme, I know it’s time to work. The dark purple theme signals it’s time to focus on school and the rainbow theme means I am handling personal business. Each of these profiles has its own search history, bookmarks, saved locations, and settings, which also helps keep everything organized and siloed. Each of the profiles aligns with one of my many email addresses, but not all of my Gmail accounts have a profile on my computer. The Gmails I use for spam or for signing up for trial accounts of certain apps, for instance, only get used on my phone and in the event I need to open one up on my computer, I just do that in a private window.
It has become second nature to me now. I would never open the lilac or purple profile to stream a Twins game or use my personal one to read about the topics I cover for work. It wouldn’t even occur to me and that division helps me stay focused on whatever I’m doing in the moment. Sometimes, though, I do tackle multiple things at once—and the division helps there, too. I can stream a game in my personal profile while I write a paper for school without sacrificing much-needed tab space in my academic profile; it just runs in the background, in another window.
Ways to use separate Chrome profiles
Everyone’s needs are different, but here are some ideas for separate profiles you could use:
One to manage your home, where you only do things related to maintenance, renovation, paying bills, etc.
One to manage kids’ lives, where you keep their schedule, contact childcare or their school, and make searches related to their needs.
One to handle extended family stuff, like receive chain emails from your Boomer aunt, schedule family get-togethers, or even help your parents manage their affairs if they’re not very tech-savvy.
One profile just for social media use, to stop yourself from accessing Facebook or X or whatever else while you’re working and make your social media time more intentional.
One for every job, which is something I’ve considered but haven’t gotten around to doing, but which could help you sort through various money-making and professional obligations, especially if you’re a freelancer or a business owner with a bunch of them.
One for each major work project, to make collaboration easier and keep everything related to the project in one place, like a Single Source of Truth.
These are, of course, just suggestions, but you can make a new profile for any aspect of your life that involves correspondence, scheduling, or researching.
How to make separate Chrome profiles
First of all, you don’t need a Gmail account to create a Google Account, so if you use Outlook for work or school, this won’t preclude you from making a separate profile.
Credit: Lindsey Ellefson
To create a new profile, open Chrome and click your profile icon in the top right corner, then, “Add.” From there, you’ll be asked to choose between “Sign in,” which you'll choose you'll link a Google Account to the profile, or “Continue without an account,” if you don’t. From there, you’ll enter in your username and password (or skip that part), agree to turn on sync, and give the profile a name and add an optional photo and color scheme.
When you want to access a certain profile, right-click (or two-finger click if you’re on a Mac) on the Chrome icon, then select your preferred profile from the list. It will open a new window just for that profile.
For coffee enthusiasts like myself, a quality cup is always a good beverage option. In the morning, it is the only choice. Winter tries to push tea into my life, but coffee is always there to right my ship. And summer? Well, we might as well change the name to simply “cold brew season.” Now that I’ve switched out my sweaters for my cold-brew-season wardrobe, it’s time to focus on how to zhuzh up my favorite bev. My advice to you: Try making your brew with whole spices.
Set up your cold brew materials
The truth is, the best way to make a better cold brew is to buy great beans. Good coffee is not cheap—I can’t bring myself to tell my Folgers-sipping parents how much I spend on beans—but you’ll be stunned at the difference in the quality of your cup. (I’m a Café Grumpy girl, myself.) Once you’ve found a bean and roast you like, it’s time to begin the overnight cold brew process.
If you’ve spent the money on good beans, go get yourself a coffee grinder, too. I know, I know, you can buy them pre-ground, and I love that. However, you’re about to enter a realm where you can use your beans for espresso, drip, and cold brew. Those all do best with differently sized coffee grinds. Plus, a great coffee grinder will last you for years.
The whole notion of cold brew is that it's a slow extraction process with no heat. The components—ground coffee and water—sit together for 12 to 24 hours in a chilly place—your fridge, ideally. The resulting chilled beverage features a smoother texture with less acidity and fewer bitter notes. Since your coffee grinds are sitting there imbuing the liquid with their flavors, this is a great time for other such things to do the same. Specifically, hunks of complementary and flavorful spices.
1. Set up your brewing container
Brewing cold coffee in your fridge overnight does require some sort of container apparatus, but I just use a basic French press to take care of business—it has a reusable filter and plunger and makes my life easier. (You could also use a nut milk bag in a jug, or a container designed for the job.)
2. Grind the coffee
Set your coffee grinder to the coarse or medium-coarse setting. You’ll need to filter out the pieces at the end and that’s much harder to do with fine particles floating around. Grind as much coffee as you need and add it to the filter, bag, or French press.
3. Add the water and spices
Add as much cold water as you need for your cold brew ratio. Now for the fun part: Add whole spices. Depending on your batch size and how you like your concentrate (do you add milk too?), you may prefer quite a few of everything—like four cinnamon sticks and a tablespoon of cloves—or a smaller amount. When you dilute it later the flavors will mellow out considerably. Give the mixture a stir, or a light plunge, to mix things around. Put the lid on and set it in the fridge to brew for 12 to 24 hours. Strain the mixture when it’s ready and prepare it as you like.
I've found that baking spices work well. Try whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, black peppercorns, or add in some citrus peel. If you’re not sure where to start, check the packaging. Many coffee roasters will write the flavor profile on the label of that particular blend. If you see “floral, citrus, silky” on the label, add some strips of lemon peel to bring out those flavors. If you see “candied pecan and milk chocolate” then I could see cinnamon going quite nicely.
I added star anise and cloves to a medium roast I had and the flavor was present and playful, but not crowding out the basic elements of the cold brew at all. So go ahead, take your time and enjoy trying out some different combinations; there’s no need to rush. Cold brew season is only just beginning.
Google has officially moved Android 15 into its second beta, bringing with it a slew of new things for developers and early Android 15 users to check out. Now that the beta has been available for over a month, more devices are starting to gain access to the first version, giving users beyond the Pixel family a chance to check out the latest changes to the operating system.
Android 15, of course, is the next version of Google's mobile OS, and it continues to offer new AI features for Android users to take advantage of. Android 15 beta 2 is only available on select Pixel devices at the start, with the list of supported devices including:
Beyond Pixel devices, there are other third-party Android phones that support the Android 15 beta. However, keep in mind that the version of the beta available is also dependent on what the manufacturer of these devices has readied for them. Most of these devices are for international users, and cannot be used in the United States:
HONOR Magic 6 Pro: BVL-N49 8.0.0.148(C431E4R2P2), 8.0.0.152(C636E2R2P2) or higher
HONOR Magic V2: VER-N49 8.0.0.105(C431E2R2P2), 8.0.0.105(C636E2R2P2) or higher
vivo X100
iQOO 12
Lenovo Tab Extreme
Nothing Phone (2a)
OnePlus 12
OnePlus Open
Oppo Find N3
Realme 12 Pro+ 5G
Sharp AQUOS sense8
TECNO Camon 30 Pro
Xiaomi 14
Xiaomi 13T Pro
Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4
Android 15 has been available in the Android Developer Preview since February, but Google recently opened the virtual floodgates to get early adopters involved, too. New features debuted in Android 15 beta 1 include an edge-to-edge display mode for apps by default, which should make it easier for developers to create apps to show content behind the system bars.
Google is also upgrading the NFC experience on Android 15 to provide a more seamless and reliable experience for tap to pay. A big change, too, makes it easier to archive and unarchive apps, which should help with cleaning up your Android device, though it will still require some input from developers. You can get a look at all the Android 15 features we know about so far, but most of them seem to be aligned with making the operating system more efficient for users.
New Android 15 beta 2 features
With the release of beta 2, Google rolled out some new features to Android 15: Following changes to foreground services, battery life should be more efficient when running apps. Google has also increased support for page sizes to 16KB, which should allow for lower app launch times, faster camera launch, and reduced power draw during launch. The company is also modernizing how the Android system accesses the GPU to provide a more efficient pipeline for those functionalities that rely on your smartphone's GPU.
There are also some great new privacy features this year, including private space, which allows users to create a separate space to house certain apps. Private space requires additional authentication to access, which makes it a secure way to store those apps that contain sensitive information, such as your banking apps. Larger screen multitasking also makes its first debut in the second beta for Android 15: You can now save your favorite split-screen app setups and access them at any time. Transitions from full-screen to picture-in-picture mode should also be smoother.
Widgets are also getting a bit of a facelift in Android 15 beta 2, with Google adding support for richer widget previews, as well as generated previews: That way, you can actually see what the widget looks like before adding it to your home screen. Speaking of previews, predictive back, the feature that shows you a preview of which app or service you're swiping back to, is also fully rolling out with this beta.
In addition, there are new data types for Health Connect, which offer a more centralized way for users to control access to their fitness and health data. Google is also extending the "choose how you're addressed" system setting, which it originally debuted to French users. This will allow users to decide if they want to be addressed as masculine, feminine, or neutral.
Other behind-the-scenes changes include some fixes to help avoid clipped text in some languages, as well as a new Japanese Hentaigana font, a CJK variable font, and options to enable richer vibrations for notifications. The latter gives Android users a way to distinguish between different notifications based on the vibrations their phone users.
Beta releases are expected to continue throughout the rest of May and June, and Google says it hopes to reach platform stability by the end of June. The target would be a fall release for Android 15, which is also when we expect to see the latest Pixel devices hit the market, based on past releases. Of course, Google is still keeping the full list of new Android features close to the chest, and we don't expect to learn about everything the tech giant has in store until it reveals its next lineup of smartphones later this year. But if you're interested in testing out the latest version of Android, you can download Android 15 beta 1 and beta 2 right now, on applicable devices.
Just remember, beta software is unfinished and in-testing, which means you could encounter bugs and glitches. Don't install the Android beta on your main smartphone unless you're okay assuming those risks.
What does that mean, exactly? Reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug is a major change in federal policy, but it is not the same as federal legalization. Instead, it means cannabis is no longer classed with more serious Schedule I (drugs considered to have "no medical use" and a high potential for abuse; examples include heroin and ecstasy). Schedule III drugs are considered to have a mild to low risk of physical or psychological dependance.
While the reclassification won't federally legalize the drug, nor change its legal status at the local level in states that have legalized medical or recreational use, it could make it easier for scientists to research its benefits for medical use, as well as allow business to claim more credits and deductions on their federal taxes.
Ohio was the third state, following Delaware and Minnesota, to pass legalization measures in 2023, bringing the number of states where recreational use is permitted to 24; cannabis (as opposed to THC-free CBD) is still (more or less) wholly illegal in 12 states, while the remainder allow for legal medical use, with varying restrictions.
Here’s a rundown of where weed is legal for recreational and medical use (and where it isn’t) as of May 2024.
States that legalized weed in 2023
In addition to Ohio, which legalized recreational cannabis via a ballot measure, Delaware and Minnesota changed their laws via legislation earlier this year.
Minnesota: On May 30, 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a legalization bill that had previously been approved by the legislature with bi-partisan support. While efforts to establish a regulated local market are still ongoing, possession of up to 2 ounces of cannabis became legal in August.
States that have legalized recreational marijuana
In 24 states, including 2023's new additions, weed is treated like alcohol—it’s legal for adults (21 and over) to purchase and is regulated and taxed by the government. The specifics of what you can purchase and possess (and where) vary a bit by state. These states also have medical marijuana.
Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Rhode Island
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Recreational weed is also legal in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Areas that have legal weed but no sales
In the District of Columbia, it’s legal to possess and grow limited amounts of weed, but there are no commercial sales outside of medical marijuana from a limited number of licensed dispensaries.
States that have medical cannabis laws
A number of states have legalized medical marijuana but do not allow broader recreational use.
Alabama
Arkansas
Delaware*
Florida
Hawaii*
Kentucky
Louisiana
Minnesota*
New Hampshire*
New Mexico*
North Dakota*
South Dakota
Ohio*
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
South Dakota
Utah
Virginia*
West Virginia
*According to the Marijuana Policy Project, these states have also decriminalized marijuana, reducing or removing jail time for possession of limited amounts of weed.
States that have decriminalized weed
Nebraska and North Carolina have laws that decriminalize marijuana to a degree, meaning penalties for first-time possession of small amounts of weed are reduced. Both have a suspended sentence for a first offense—Nebraska imposes a fine and a possible drug education course. Medical marijuana legislation has failed in both states.
States that have (almost) nothing
The remaining states do not permit broad medical or recreational marijuana—nor is weed decriminalized—though all except for Idaho allow access to low-THC products containing CBD for medical use (which, while technically “legal medical cannabis,” isn’t quite the same thing as a robust legal medical market).
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Nebraska
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Wisconsin
Wyoming
The legal status of hemp-derived cannabis
All of the above references cannabis containing delta 9 THC, the intoxicating substance in the cannabis plant. However, new extraction techniques have allowed manufacturers to create synthetic forms of cannabis derived from hemp plants, including delta 8 THC and, more recently, THCa.
Originally published in 2020, this article has been updated periodically to reflect changing laws around the country. It was most recently updated in May 2024.
The Windows 11 taskbar is one of the new operating system’s best features—elegant, minimalist, and visually distinct. Even still, it could use some improvement. For example, by default, you can’t move the taskbar to any position you want, or even change its size. But you don’t have to live with it as is—there are ways to play with your settings to set up the taskbar exactly the way you want it.
Disable Microsoft Copilot and other junk
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
The Windows 11 taskbar comes with a lot of buttons you're (probably) never going to use. On the left edge, there's the Widgets button that loves to show news updates and ads. On the right, there's the new Microsoft Copilot button that you may or may not find useful. And in the middle, next to the Start icon, is a big old Search bar. Thankfully, Microsoft was forced to remove the Chat button in the Windows 11 2023 update, so there's some solace there. But you'll be surprised how much better the taskbar becomes when you remove all these unnecessary features. It becomes minimal, sleek, and far more sensible.
To hide the features you don't want, right-click any empty area of the taskbar, and go to Taskbar settings. In the Taskbar Items menu, make sure to disable the Widgets, Task View, and Copilot features. In the Search menu, choose the Hide option.
Pin any app to the taskbar
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Windows 11 doesn’t yet support the taskbar drag-and-drop feature from Windows 10, which let you simply drag an app icon to dock it within the taskbar. As a workaround, go to Start menu, right-click the app of your choice, and click the Pin to Taskbar button. You can pin any currently open app by right-clicking the app icon and choosing the Pin to taskbar option.
Align taskbar icons to the left
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Missing the Windows 10 taskbar layout? Microsoft lets you change the alignment of taskbar icons. Right-click the taskbar, go to Taskbar Settings, and from Taskbar Behaviors, choose the Left option in the Taskbar alignment feature.
Customize the taskbar behavior (auto-hide, badges, and more)
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Windows 11 has a separate section that lets you customize how the taskbar behaves. Right-click the taskbar, click the Taskbar Settings button, and select the Taskbar Behaviors section.
If you’re using a touchscreen laptop, or a small screen device, you might want to hide the taskbar for more screen space. If so, enable Automatically hide the taskbar. Now, the taskbar will only show up when you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen or when you swipe up from the taskbar area.
Similarly, you can disable the badges on taskbar icons using the Show badges on taskbar apps feature. If you don’t like when icons flash in the taskbar, disable the Show flashing on taskbar apps feature.
If you use multiple displays, use the Show my taskbar on all displays feature to enable or disable the taskbar across all your monitors.
Put the taskbar at the top of the screen
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Microsoft has docked the taskbar to the bottom of the screen and won’t let you move it willy-nilly. It is impossible to put it on the left or the right sides of the screen, but you can move it to the top of the screen using a registry hack.
Open Start > Registry Editor and enter the following location in the top bar:
In the StuckRects3 folder, double click the Settings file. This will open the Edit Binary Value window where you will see a table full of values. Go to the second row, and find the fifth value from the left. By default, this reads “03.”
Place the cursor to the right (end) of this value, press Backspace once, and change the value to “01.” Click the OK button and exit the Registry Editor app.
Next, open the Task Manager app and restart Windows Explorer.
Make the taskbar smaller or bigger
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Another big change in the Windows 11 taskbar is the fact that you can’t easily resize it, whether you want it to be larger or smaller. But again, although there is no settings menu where you can change this, you can do it using a registry hack.
Go to Start > Registry Editor and enter the following location:
Right-click in the empty space and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. A new entry will be added to the bottom of the Advanced folder. Rename it to TaskbarSi.
Double click the TaskbarSi file. In the Value Data field, enter “0" if you want a smaller taskbar and “2" if you want a larger one (“1" being the default option). Click the OK button.
Restart your PC, or restart Windows Explorer from the Task Manager. You should see your taskbar appear at its new size.
Bring back the Windows 10 taskbar
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
If you've tried all the customizations and you're still not satisfied, we have one last recommendation for you: Ditch the whole enterprise and go back to the Windows 10 taskbar. Or, at least, bring back some of the Windows 10 elements.
You can use a free and open source app called ExplorerPatcher to bring back the entire taskbar, and the Start menu from Windows 10. All it takes is to install the app, and it will instantly revert you back to the good old days. The best part about the app is that you can go into the Settings and customize each and every part of the taskbar. For instance, you can go back to the apps view from Windows 10, while still keeping the system tray and flyout menus from Windows 11.
The customization really is the key here, as it will even let you revert back to menus from Windows 8 era. We have talked about ExplorerPatcher in much more detail in our dedicated guide, so make sure to follow the instructions there for a perfect taskbar setup.
Testing smart grills has raised a philosophical argument over what constitutes a “barbecue”: Must all barbecues involve actual fire (or just heat, like infrared)? Is it assumed all barbecues are also smokers? In the end, it was one specific grill that provided clarity for me around these questions. The Current Model G Dual Zone Smart Grill is decidedly not a barbecue. While it is meant for the outdoors, requiring outdoor-sized real estate, and it will put grill marks on your food, this electric grill is just that—a grill. Simply put, it was like taking a giant George Foreman grill out on the patio.
While I appreciated the connectivity and size of the grill area, I was not a fan of the flimsy physical build. Though the grill did get quite hot and was highly effective in cooking food, it took longer than a gas grill and about the same amount of time as a charcoal grill. And cleanup was a chore, despite a self-clean function. Ultimately, it just wasn’t worth the price of $999.99 to stand on the patio for the same effect on food as standing over the stove, so even if you are prevented from using gas, charcoal, or real fire on your patio, I’d probably choose a different electric grill.
It has a modern design, but flimsy build
If it’s been a while since you bought a barbecue or grill, the first thing to know is all grills arrive to you in many pieces and require hours to put together. The Current took two hours for me to build, and required an app for the directions, which isn’t as helpful as a printed manual when you’re outside in the sun, squinting to see detail from the video on your phone. Still, the directions were clear, and the parts were well-labeled. Some parts of the grill were inexplicably flimsy, though, while others, like the barbecue tools (tongs, spatula) were over-engineered to be sturdier than any barbecue tools I’d ever used before and came with interchangeable rubber grips.
The metal of the grill is held together by screws in most places, but also metal clips, and these proved to be worthless. In particular, the side panels that made up the cabinet underneath the grill refused to stay on. As soon as you’d clip a panel in, the slightest breeze would cause it to slide off again. Great attention was given to creating a sturdy, two-sided staging area for food in the cabinet, which I really liked. However, the entire grill is exceptionally light and even when fully assembled, it didn't feel solid—in fact, merely rolling the grill ten feet from the spot I assembled it caused enough vibration that the grill had lost all of its panels by the time it was in its new spot.
The grill has a large digital touchscreen that displays the temperature for both sides of the grill. It has 330 inches of cook space, which was the most of any grill I've tried, and the whole point of the Dual Zone is that you can have only one side of the grill on, or use both sides at different temperatures. There’s also a warming grate on the top half of the grill and two temperature probes to monitor your food. The grill has enough ports for two additional probes.
The Current Grill app is simple enough, with tabs for recipes and videos on how to use the grill. Through the process of testing products for review, I probably pair five to ten new products a week with my phone, and I struggle to remember ever having as much trouble doing so as I did with the Current Grill. Clearly, I’m not the only one: When you call support (which did answer the phone, even on a Sunday), Bluetooth and wifi problems are #3 in the phone menu.
After a day of troubleshooting, I was able to finally pair the app, but luckily, the grill doesn’t need the app to function. You can just turn it on from the touch screen. The benefits of the app were limited compared to other smart grills. You can’t turn any grills on remotely—that's a safety issue—but other grills offered a lot more functionality, even when the grill was off. The Current won’t let you access any information if the grill isn’t on, and when it is on and connected, you are limited to merely seeing and setting the temperature of the grill and the temperature of any probes that are connected. While the recipe section isn’t infinite, it did include enough recipes for any basic meal you’d throw on a grill.
It's slow to heat, with a high electrical draw
The Current did leave nice grill marks and did cook food effectively, but without the hallmarks of barbecue like the flavor of fire or smoke.Credit: Amanda Blum
The whole point of this enterprise is to grill food, and in that way, the Current does a decent job. It can get up to temperatures of 700°F degrees on both sides of the grill, which sounded exciting since most electric grills can't achieve that. But even with the lid closed, it took almost 20 minutes to do so. As it is electric, and you’re not gaining any smoke or char effect, you might as well just turn your stovetop on—it’ll take less time to heat a stovetop griddle.
This leads to another issue with the Current: It loses considerable heat with the lid open. Through grilling steak, chicken, corn, salmon, cauliflower, and a pork tenderloin, I observed the same things over and over. If you got the grill very hot, you could get a nice initial sear, so long as you immediately closed the grill top, but if the lid was closed, it would take a long time for the grill to adjust to a lower temperature to cook items through. You could get around this problem by just leaving the grill lid open for a minute, though, because the heat loss was so dramatic that you really couldn’t cook much with the grill lid open. Since the lid is solid metal, this meant you couldn’t see what was happening on the grill top unless you opened it up, at which point the temperature would drop by 150 degrees. All the while, the electrical load the grill is using is not minimal at 1750 watts. Current recommends a dedicated circuit, which I did not have on the patio, and if you also do not have this, expect to have to flip a few circuit breakers through the process.
On the left, before self clean; on the right, after.Credit: Amanda Blum
Cleaning any grill is a chore, so I was excited about the self-clean function on the Current grill, which takes thirty minutes. At the end of each grill session, despite pre-seasoning the grill and using a liberal amount of oil, the grill plates would have a lot of stuck-on gunk, but that's true of any grill. Scrubbing with the brushes that worked on other grills didn’t do much with the Current since the cooktop isn't an open grill but a series of wavy metal plates. Sadly, the self-clean function seemed to result in the opposite effect you’d want. The grill somehow looked worse after self-clean, no matter how many times I ran it (see above).Removing the grill plates altogether and scrubbing them inside was the only way to really get them clean.
Bottom line: There are better options
I imagine that someone who buys an electric grill is doing so to avoid messing around with charcoal or an open flame. The food I cooked with the Current certainly turned out fine, and though it lacked the smokiness and char that a flame would give you, the food otherwise compared well to it’s barbecue counterparts—but it was also clear to me that the whole point of barbecuing was that effect the fire and smoke has on food. Still, even at a much lower price, I’d have issues with the build of the Current, which I fear would not withstand a strong windstorm after a long, complicated build.
The connectivity did not provide enough functionality for the pain of getting the connection up. Ultimately, you’re spending almost $1,000 to cook on the patio with less efficiency than your stovetop, for the same effect. If you had to go electric, I’d go with a far less expensive grill, and I might be willing to sacrifice the size of the active cooking space to get more consistent heat.
If you thought the frenzy around GameStop and other so-called "meme stocks" was over after the rollercoaster ride of 2021, think again: GameStop's stock (ticker GME) has surged over 500% in just the last month, fueled by a spike in trading volume. But as of this week, the so-called mania for "meme stocks" may already be waning.
This week's rollercoaster is reminiscent of early 2021, when members of the Reddit investing community r/WallStreetBets rallied together to purchase GameStop and other struggling companies' stocks, like AMC. Their goal? To squeeze out hedge funds and other institutional investors who had shorted those stocks, betting their prices would fall.
While GameStop was the leader, other meme stocks like AMC Entertainment and Bed Bath & Beyond have also seen big share price jumps in recent days, as the Reddit crowd appears to be reassembling their troops.
So what does this mean for everyday investors? A few key points:
Meme stocks are extremely volatile and risky. The frenzy investing is based more on online sentiment than underlying company fundamentals. Prices can swing wildly in either direction.
Don't invest money you can't afford to lose. Given the unpredictable and speculative nature of meme stock trading, investors need to have a high risk tolerance.
Understand what you're getting into. While the prospect of getting in early on a meme stock run-up is enticing, these are not normal market conditions. Like in 2021, manipulation by coordinated online investment groups is suspected.
While the current meme stock rally (and comedown) may be exciting to watch, for most investors, it will be better observed from the sidelines. Those who do jump in should do so with open eyes about the extraordinary risks involved. Catching the next meme stock wave could pay off, but trying to surf these volatile market manias is not for the faint of heart. You're safer putting the money in an index fund.
If you would like to plant a tree in your yard but you’re not sure that you have the space because you've heard it's a bad idea to plant a tree too close to your house, you’re in luck.
While some types of trees definitely shouldn't be planted near your home because their roots can damage your foundation, other varieties actually are safe to plant, even relatively close to a structure. Here are five of your best options, as well as a few to avoid.
Crabapple
Crabapple (Malus sp.) trees usually mature at a height of about 20 feet and have a non-invasive root system, meaning it’s not likely to damage your foundation. There are about 1,000 varieties of crabapple, of which about 100 are commonly available for planting in the U.S. These trees can thrive in U.S. agricultural zones 3 through 8, and will produce white or pink flowers in spring, and fruit that’s usually less than two inches in diameter. If you choose a plant that’s native to North America, like Malus coronaria, Malus fusca, or Malus ioensis, the flowers are good for pollinators and the fruit is good for native birds, so they can bring wildlife to your yard as well.
Dogwood
Twelve species of the flowering Dogwood (Cornus sp.) are native to North America and can flourish in USDA zones 5 through 9. They grow at a moderate rate, about 12 to 24 inches a year, and reach a height and width of 15 to 20 feet in the sun, and 40 feet or more in the shade. Because of their slow growth rate, relatively gentle roots, and easy pruning, dogwood trees are considered safe to plant near your house.
Serviceberry
Serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) is native to North America, and there are varieties that can thrive in USDA zones 2 through 9. This tree can grow as small as six feet or as tall as 25 feet, and between four and 25 feet wide. They can be trimmed to the size and height of a shrub, or allowed to mature to their full height. Their relatively small size and non-invasive root structure makes them good for planting near your house, and the flowers, berries, and autumn foliage color make them a wildlife friendly and aesthetically pleasing addition to your landscaping.
Crape Myrtle
You can plant varieties of Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia sp.) trees in USDA zones 6 through 11, and they can grow to be anywhere from six to 30 feet tall and between four and 15 feet wide. These trees, with their brightly colored blooms, are good for planting near structures because their roots aren’t invasive and they tend not to get big enough to cause damage. If you have limited space, you will need to stay on top of pruning the tree, as they can grow up to three feet in a single season. Also take care to check the specific variety of tree you’re choosing to account for the space you’ll need.
American Holly
While the American Holly (Ilex opaca) tree can grow up to 60 feet tall, it can also be pruned and kept to about 25 feet in height. This variety of holly is native to North America and can be planted in USDA zones 5 through 9. It will produce light green to white flowers and its signature bright red berries and is an evergreen, for winter color. It’s known to be safe for planting near structures and makes an excellent habitat for local wildlife.
Trees to avoid planting close to your house
Trees to avoid planting near your house include the white ash (Fraxinus Americana), poplars (Populus sp.), and weeping willows (Salix babylonica). These trees have wide-spreading root systems that can damage foundations, sewer lines, driveways, and slabs. Give them a wide berth of at least 40 or 50 feet from structures to avoid damage.
Since macOS Mojave was launched back in 2018, users have been able to take advantage of dynamic wallpapers (originally called dynamic desktops)—backdrop images that shift in color as the time of day changes. So as night falls outside your window, night will also fall on the wallpaper on your desktop.
It's a neat idea, and if you load up the Wallpaper section of System Settings in macOS today, you'll find no fewer than 31 different dynamic wallpapers to choose from, courtesy of Apple—everything from landscape shots of nature to abstract pattern designs, enough to last you more than a year if you swap over to a new one every fortnight.
What you can't do natively in macOS is set up your own dynamic wallpapers. For this job, you need a third-party application, and there are a couple of really good ones you can check out: Equinox and Dynaper. There's also the Dynamic Wallpaper Club website, which features a gallery of many high-quality dynamic wallpapers, plus a tool for making your own through the web interface.
To get started, you need at least two images to make a dynamic wallpaper, and what they show and how you make them is up to you: They can represent the same place at different times, but they don't have to.
Creating dynamic wallpapers with Equinox
You can download Equinox for free from the Mac App Store, and once you've got it running, you need to choose how your new dynamic wallpaper will work: Solar (images change based on sunrise and sunset times in your region), Time (images change based on any other specific timings), or Appearance (images change based on whether macOS is in light or dark mode).
On the next screen, you need to add one or more pictures to form your dynamic wallpaper (if you add one that you later want to remove, right-click on it and choose Delete image). You can drag and drop images into the program window, or click Browse to pick them manually. For the Appearance option you just need two images, but there's no limit to how many you can use for the other modes (click and drag images to change their order once they've been imported).
Equinox can create dynamic wallpapers quickly for you.Credit: Lifehacker
In the Solar mode, you need to supply altitude and azimuth information, the position of the sun in the sky when the photo was taken. Use the Calculator button to work these out based on the time of day and your region, if you're not sure. In the Time mode, you simply need to supply times for each image to appear—Equinox will add some timings automatically, but you can change them if needed.
Click Create, and after a few moments of calculation, your new dynamic wallpaper is created. Equinox gives you plenty of options on the next dialog: You can save the new image to disk, share it to another app, or set the dynamic wallpaper directly inside Equinox. If you want to start again with a fresh batch of images, click New.
Finding and setting dynamic wallpapers
You've got plenty of options when it comes to creating dynamic wallpapers on macOS. You can go out into the real world with a camera and a tripod—maybe even setting up a time-lapse photo that you can pick out a few frames. Alternatively, if you only have one image, you can use your favorite image editor to manipulate the lighting and colors so you've got several versions.
If you'd rather use dynamic wallpapers made by someone else, check out the galleries available through the Dynamic Wallpaper Club website and the 24 Hour Wallpaper macOS app. The latter requires payments—$1.29 per wallpaper or $69.99 for all 125 images—but they're all of an impressive quality. No matter what your tastes are in terms of backdrops for your Mac, you should be able to find something you like.
MacOS recognizes files saved as dynamic wallpapers.Credit: Lifehacker
On the Dynamic Wallpaper Club website, you do have the option of building your own dynamic wallpapers, though you will need to sign up for a free account. Through the web interface you can choose your images and pick your timings. It's not quite as slick as Equinox, but it's there if you need it (make sure you uncheck the Public wallpaper box if you don't want to share your creation with the Dynamic Wallpaper Club community).
Actually setting a dynamic wallpaper is straightforward: Open the Apple menu, then System Settings, then select Wallpaper. Click Add Photo and Choose, then point macOS towards the dynamic wallpaper that you've made. You'll see that the picture type is set as Dynamic in the top right corner, and the pictures will be cycled through automatically, based on the timings you've provided.
Since the launch of Android in 2008, Apple’s iOS has lagged significantly behind its Google-powered competition in one respect: retro gaming. While some companies, particularly Final Fantasy creator Square Enix, regularly bring their older games to the App Store via official mobile ports, the best fans of Sonic or Mario used to be able to get through the App Store were freemium games like Sonic Dash or Super Mario Run.
Sometimes, you want something a little meatier. And Android fans would agree—since the platform’s launch, it’s been open to game emulators, which can mimic old consoles using software to play games from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and in some cases the ‘00s and beyond.
As Apple gears up the iPhone to be a modern gaming powerhouse with fully functional versions of games like Resident Evil Village, it seems like the company is finally ready to address this blind spot. Emulators can be tricky for relations with game publishers, even if they’re technically legal, but in an update on April 5, Apple finally changed its rules to allow them on the App Store, provided they don’t distribute copyright-infringing material.
Since then, a small but dedicated group of developers has stepped up to bring retro gaming to the most popular mobile platform in the US. Here are the best game emulators for iPhone—and best of all, they’re all free.
RetroArch is the most powerful emulation program on the App Store, but technically, it’s not an emulator at all. Instead, it’s a front end for running various emulation "cores" distributed by other developers. Think of RetroArch like a menu, where each core is a different console you can pick off the menu and then customize to your liking.
Because of all these options, it can be a little confusing to navigate. RetroArch’s interface is bare-bones, and while it can be dressed up with various themes, it will still sometimes dump dozens of concepts on a page at once while doing little to explain them.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The upside is that, right from when you download it off the App Store, you’ll be able to play games from a list of 70+ consoles, including popular mainstays like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation 1. Most will work out of the box, but some might require a BIOS (or operating system) file, or at least suggest adding one or two for added compatibility.
That’s the rub with emulators: They can’t distribute information protected by copyright, so you’ll need to provide it yourself. Emulation enthusiasts assure that making backup files of games you own is legal according to U.S. law, although the practice has yet to face much legal scrutiny.
But RetroArch makes it more difficult to load up your own files than most competing programs. Rather than picking from a list of games, all displayed with pretty box art, the general process is to Open RetroArch, select Load Core, pick the system you want to play (there might be multiple cores for each system, with varying levels of performance and accuracy to original hardware between them), click Load Content, then click Open and select your game from your file browser.
That’s a lot to do every time you want to play a game, and might require you to do some research beforehand about which core to use. And there’s more—once you get into a game, there’s dozens of settings to tweak, including “Frame Throttle” and “Latency.”
For the most part, you can ignore these, but while you can mitigate the pain with features like Favorites and Playlists, it can still be a little overwhelming.
Enthusiasts are sure to love the granular control, though, as setting can even be set on a per-core basis. Everyone else can at least be assured that there’s easy access to basics like touch controls and save states (which can save a game anywhere, separate from its in-game save function) while you’re playing, which you can do in either portrait or landscape mode.
RetroArch is the best choice to get the most tweaks and consoles at your fingertips, and is worth a download just as a backup, since it might be the only way to play certain games. But if you’re looking for something more user-friendly, there are other options.
Delta was the first emulator to really take off on the App Store, and functions like a stripped-down but more user-friendly version of RetroArch. It also supports a number of cores, but only one for each console, and for just a select number of mostly older systems.
These include the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance, and the Sega Genesis. Again, you’ll need to provide game files yourself, and in the case of the DS, BIOS files.
But once you’ve gone through those steps, setup is much simpler than in RetroArch. You simply need to add a game to Delta’s main menu once, through a + icon in the top-right corner that will let you browse either iTunes or your files, and Delta will add it to a menu for the appropriate console, complete with box art.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
From there, just click on the game’s icon and it’ll boot up. You’ll see touch controls that will work in both portrait and landscape mode, and have access to basic functions like save states and a “hold button,” which can keep a specific button continually held down when you play (useful for games like Super Mario World).
In the app’s settings menu, you’ll also be able to add cheat codes, change the opacity of the touch controls, and even connect to a DropBox or Google Drive folder to load games from there.
It’s generally a smoother experience, and frankly, it's also cuter. Delta has a very Gamecube-purple color across all its menus, and the touch controls for each system come with great theming, which you can also swap out for custom options if you want.
If all you want to do is play old Nintendo games, Delta might be your best bet, as it’s similar to Retroarch but doesn’t require a computer engineering degree to use.
PPSSPP is actually available in Retroarch as a core, but if all you want to do is play PSP games, it’s your best bet.
That’s because it’ll give you everything Retroarch does, but like Delta, comes with an interface that’s simpler to navigate.
The catch is that it only works in landscape mode, but since PSP games are widescreen anyway, that’s probably want you’ll want to use regardless.
The UI here isn’t as clean as Delta's, but it still offers a simpler basic process than RetroArch (and the menu is cute too, since it resembles an actual PSP menu). To play a game, just open the app, click Load, and browse your files for your game. PPSSPP will add it to the Games menu, and after playing it, it will show up in the Recent menu for later use.
Once in a game, click the ^ arrow at the top of the screen for save states as well as more advanced options that you can set per game. Like with RetroArch, there’s some real vocab here, like “Disable culling” and “Skip GPU Readbacks,” but you can generally ignore these, and experts will like the extra options.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The only real flaw with the app is that it’s not as powerful as on other systems, since Apple’s coding restrictions have prevented developer Henrik Rydgård from adding in features like RetroAchievements and Vulkan graphics support. In a blog post, Rydgård said he was working on bringing these back, but that performance might always lag behind the version of the app on other systems, as Apple doesn’t allow the Just-in-Time recompilers that can help retranslate code for smoother play.
Still, given the power behind modern Apple devices, this shouldn’t be a problem for most. The biggest problem I had when playing Mega Man Maverick Hunter X was the touch controls, but as with all other emulators on this list, you can use an external controller instead if you wish.
Note that you will eventually see a paid version of PPSSPP on the App Store, but if it’s like past PPSSPP releases, it won’t come with any extra features. Instead, buying it is just a way to support Rydgård’s work.
Gamma is a hard sell, but if you really don’t want to deal with RetroArch, it might be a good choice for you. It’s another single purpose emulator, this time for PS1 games, and it generally works like Delta. In fact, while talking to The Verge, Delta developer Riley Testut said Gamma is based on his work, with permission.
It should be a slam dunk, with a similar easy setup process that just involves pressing a + in the top right corner, adding the game file, and automatically having it populate a list with included box art. There’s even a service for linking to a Dropbox or Google Drive folder, plus the ability to use various skins with the touch controller. Gamma can also play without a BIOS, though adding one can improve performance.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt/Lifehacker
The problem is the ads. When booting a game and while idling on the main menu, Gamma will play ads that can last up to a minute, and it just completely kills momentum. The app will also ask to track your activity when you first load it up, which can be a little frightening.
There’s a way around this, which requires turning off wifi and network data while using Gamma. But that’s a lot to do just to play games from the ‘90s.
What emulators aren’t on iOS?
Even with these four options, iOS still lags behind Android when it comes to emulation. RetroArch, as complicated as it may be, covers most bases, but systems like PS2, Gamecube, Wii and even Nintendo Switch are still unrepresented on the device, even as they’re playable elsewhere.
We might never see these systems come to iPhone, thanks to the limitations pointed out by Rydgård, but with general support up to PSP, alongside ports of modern AAA games like Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, the iPhone is in stronger contention to be the best gaming phone than ever before.
To lift weights at home, first you need the weights. That’s simple enough—if you’re into barbell lifts, just buy a barbell set.
But your next problem is figuring out how you squat. Squatting typically involves a squat rack, and that’s a luxury many home gymmers don’t have. THat doesn't mean you have to forgo squatting altogether though. Let’s look at your options.
Before I get into it, note that none of the options I'll be discussing include safeties, which a real squat rack would have. That’s okay, because they all assume that you are either working with light enough weights that you won’t fail your lift, or that you know how to bail out by dumping the weight if you can’t complete the rep. This is a learnable skill, and it won’t damage your equipment if you use bumper plates—keep that in mind if you’re living the no-rack life.
Get squat stands instead of a rack
A solid squat rack is an investment, so I understand not wanting to splurge on one right away. (Heck, my own pandemic home gym went without a squat rack for about a year—not because I decided against one, but because it didn’t occur to me that a squat rack might be affordable or feasible in my small garage.)
The truth is, supports for squatting aren’t nearly as expensive as you might think. You can order a pair of lightweight but strong squat stands like these for $50 to $60, or make your own out of concrete and 2x4s. I've gone on the record saying a good squat rack is worth the investment, but I also believe that makeshift stands like these are an excellent stopgap if you aren’t ready to take that step.
Pros: Cheap, lightweight, can move out of the way for storage. The only limit to the amount of weight you can squat this way is the limit of the equipment
Cons: Not free. You also don’t get to learn any strange new skills, like the options below.
Clean the weight and do front squats
Olympic lifters and Crossfitters will probably be most comfortable with this option: Instead of squatting with the bar on your back, clean the bar into a front rack position. That means you grab it while it’s on the ground, launch it upwards, and catch it on your shoulders, just in front of your neck.
The ending position of a clean is the same as the starting position for front squats, so you can then do as many reps of front squats as you like.
The main problem with this approach is that if you aren’t a weightlifter or Crossfitter, you probably aren’t very good at cleans. It takes time, practice, and ideally some good coaching to get efficient enough at cleans to be able to handle a realistic weight for front squats. If you’re committed to lifting without a squat rack, this is a skill worth learning. Otherwise, you might want to check out the other options.
Pros: Easy if you know how to do it. Lets you make the most of a small amount of weight (front squats are harder than back squats at the same weight).
Cons: Requires you to be pretty good at cleans. Also, this doesn’t give you a way to do heavy back squats.
Zercher squats
The zercher is often seen as esoteric—an odd lift only done by odd people. But it’s actually a solid option for squats, whether or not you have a rack available. Sometimes called a “low bar front squat,” it lets you go a lot heavier than a regular front squat, but you don’t need to know how to clean a barbell to get the weight into position.
How to do zercher squats:
Stand in front of the bar with your feet wider than your arms (same idea as a sumo deadlift, but you don’t have to get as wide as sumo deadlifters do).
Deadlift the bar.
Bend your knees so that you’re in a squatting position, and set the bar down into your lap.
One at a time, slip each arm between your legs and under the bar.
Now that the bar is in the crooks of your elbows, stand up. You’ve completed your first rep.
For subsequent reps, just bend and straighten your knees as you would in a normal squat. (No need to return the bar to the ground each rep, although you can if you want.)
If your first thought is “ow, that would hurt my elbows,” well, you’re right—at first. Turns out the elbows adapt; people who zercher squat regularly find that it’s not really a problem. You can always wrap the bar in a towel or barbell pad, or wear elbow sleeves for extra cushioning. If I haven’t zerchered in a while, I’ll sometimes wear a sweatshirt and slip my knee sleeves over my elbows. Anyway, you get used to it.
Pros: Free. No special skills required. Heavy weights are possible. You get to do a deadlift with every set.
Cons: Elbows might hurt. You have to do a deadlift with every set.
Steinborn squats
Alright, now this one is an odd lift for odd people. You could become one of those people, though.
To do tit, you’ll need a clear space around you, non-slip flooring, and just enough bravery and stupidity to think “sure, what the hell, I probably won’t die.” (It will not surprise readers to hear that I check all three boxes, and thus have gone on to set a national record in my weight class in this lift.)
To be fair, it’s not as dangerous as it looks. You do need a little bit of practice to know how to stabilize the bar and center yourself underneath it, but I found it easier to learn than the Olympic clean discussed above. Would this be my first pick for somebody who wants to squat and doesn’t have a squat rack? No. But is it a viable option for a person who thinks it’s cool? Absolutely.
Pros: Free. Heavy weights are possible. Impress your friends, scare your neighbors.
Cons: Requires plenty of space and nerves of steel. Scares your neighbors.
Squat alternatives I don’t recommend
The following things are not replacements for barbell squats, in my opinion:
Barbell hack lifts are behind-the-back deadlifts. They involve the quads a little more than a regular deadlift, but they’re not squats.
Trap bar deadlifts, ditto. Great as a deadlift variation, but not a squat.
Goblet squats. These are a fine exercise, but if you’re strong enough to do barbell squats, goblets probably aren’t going to cut it as a main lift.
Lifting the bar over your head and onto your back: If you can do this, the weight is too light for a heavy set of squats.
Not-quite-squat options that are still great
The following are exercises that aren’t the same as normal barbell squats, but they’ll still build strong legs and are worth considering as you explore your options.
Bulgarian split squats: these can be done with lighter weights than regular squats, so dumbbells or a relatively light barbell can do the job.
Leg press machines, any kind (I’m including the hack squat machine here). If your gym has a leg press but no squat rack, these would be my first pick for a squat replacement.
Pistol squats: I find these to be too hard on the knees to fully replace squats, but they’ll certainly give your legs a serious challenge.
Lunges and step-ups: This type of single leg work is always challenging to the quads, and doesn’t require as much weight as two-legged squats.
I’d also like to give an honorable mention to Arthur lifts. This is where you hack lift the bar until you can get it onto your lower back, then bounce it up to your shoulders. From there, you can squat it normally. Honestly, this only didn’t make the main list because I don’t personally like it. I consider it more painful than a Zercher and scarier than a Steinborn. But if you are intrepid enough to try it, knock yourself out.
With all the decent pizza dough substitutes out there, I did not expect to enjoy this one nearly as much as I did. I knew it would be pretty good—it’s like a big chicken nugget after all—but I thought that much chicken would quickly become overwhelming. Nope. Chicken crust pizza is simply stupendous. So go on and grab a pound of ground chicken: It’s pizza night.
One thing I’d like to get out of the way is that this is not chicken parm. While it has the components of chicken parmesan—breaded chicken, tomato sauce, and cheese—it’s made differently (using baked ground chicken instead of fried cutlets) and it’s eaten differently (like a pizza). Chicken parmesan is a dish with a history, and generations of Italian-American parents passing on very specific family recipes. While chicken crust pizza is damn good, it’s not exactly worthy of the same title. Would you dub a chicken nugget dipped in ketchup next to a string cheese "chicken parmesan"? I rest my case.
How to make chicken crust pizza
Now then, back to our chicken nugget—I mean, our high-protein, super satisfying pizza crust replacement. Essentially, you need to bread both sides of a very large chicken patty. I use the help of two sheet trays to do so. They also come in handy during baking.
I seasoned a pound of ground chicken with salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and added an egg. Mix everything together thoroughly. It’s a mixture akin to a chicken meatball, but without any bread crumbs inside to tenderize the structure. There’s no need to over-mix, but at the same time, you also don’t have to worry about keeping it tender. It’s a pizza crust, so you want the meat to slice and hold up when it’s time to eat.
2. Shape the patty
On an upside down sheet pan, place a silicone baking mat, or a piece of parchment paper. Spray it lightly with oil (I used canola, but any cooking oil will do), or daub it on with a pastry brush. Dump the chicken mixture into the center and, using your fingers or a rubber spatula, press and shape the meat into a circle about a half-inch thick. My crust ended up about nine inches in diameter.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
3. Bread the chicken
While you could leave the bread entirely out of this recipe, I think it’s much more attractive and texturally pleasing with a crunchy, knobbly panko breading. There are a lot of accessible wheat-free options these days, so if you have gluten sensitivities, maybe opt for a gluten-free panko instead of forgoing the breading entirely.
Make a 1:1 mixture of fine bread crumbs and panko in a bowl. Sprinkle half of the mixture over the chicken patty and use your hand to spread it out and gently press the crumbs so they adhere to the meat. Don’t forget the edges. Spray a light layer of oil onto the crumbed-side. It’s time to flip it.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Put another silicone mat or piece of parchment on top of the chicken. Put another sheet tray, bottom-side down, on top of the mat. Grab both sheet pans firmly with both hands and flip them at the same time so you can bread the other side of the crust. Carefully peel the baking mat off (a spatula can help you if the meat is sticking a bit). Bread the other side and oil it. Replace the mat on top of the chicken and the sheet tray, bottom-side down.
4. Bake the crust
Put the crust, sandwiched by the two baking mats and the two sheet trays, in the oven. Place a weight on top. (This can be another sheet pan or a heavy skillet.) This weight will force good contact with the metal tray to conduct heat to the crust, and keep it from shrinking or bubbling up. Bake the crust at 400°F for 25 minutes. Remove the weight, top tray, and top liner, and bake the crust for another 10 minutes.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
5. Add toppings
Remove the pizza but keep the oven on. Leave the chicken crust on the pan and add a few spoonfuls of pizza sauce (it doesn’t have to be tomato), shredded cheese, and any pizza toppings your heart desires. Return the pizza to the oven and broil the pizza for three to five minutes. My oven has a “lo broil” option, and it took four minutes for the cheese to bubble. Cool the chicken crust pizza on a wire rack (there’s a lot of steam trapped under there) for five minutes before slicing and serving.
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
The crust slices beautifully, and stands up to being held in-hand, as a pizza should. The breading crisps up nicely in the oven and, surprisingly, the chicken crust never feels too heavy despite that it’s, well, mostly a plank of chicken. If you’re trying to increase your protein intake, or just add some pizzazz to your pizza routine, this crust is a must-try.
Chicken Crust Pizza Recipe
Ingredients:
1 pound raw ground chicken
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
A few cracks of black pepper
1 egg
½ cup panko
½ cup bread crumbs
Pinch of salt
A few spritzes of a neutral cooking oil
3 tablespoons of tomato sauce
½ - 1 cup of shredded mozzarella
Pizza toppings (*optional)
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a small bowl, combine the panko, bread crumbs, and a pinch of salt. Set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the first five ingredients.
3. Place a sheet pan upside-down and lay a silicone mat on it. Spray it with some neutral oil, or if you don’t have any spray oil, rub a teaspoon-ish of oil on the mat. Pile the chicken mixture into the center of the mat and pat it into a circle, about 9 inches across and a half-inch thick.
4. Pour half of the bread crumb mixture onto the chicken patty. Spread it around the surface, pressing gently, until it evenly covers the chicken top and sides.
5. Spritz more oil onto the breaded chicken and onto a second silicone mat. Place that mat, oil-side down, on top of the chicken patty. Place a second sheet tray, bottom-side down, on the mat. Holding both sheet trays, flip the chicken crust over. Take the tray and mat off so you can bread the other side. Spritz more oil onto the newly breaded side and replace the mat and sheet tray.
6. Place the double tray-ed, double matt-ed chicken into the oven and place a heavy skillet or a third sheet pan on top to weigh down the crust as it bakes. Bake for 35 minutes, taking the top pan and top mat off for the last 10 minutes to brown the crust.
7. Take the crust out of the oven and add the pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings (if using). Broil the pizza to brown the cheese and toppings lightly, about 3-5 minutes. Cool the pizza on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving.
In today's world of rampant identity theft and data breaches, protecting your credit has become vitally important. Two of the main tools you can use to safeguard your information are credit freezes and credit locks. While both restrict access to your credit file, there are some key differences to understand.
What is a credit freeze?
A credit freeze, also known as a security freeze, allows you to seal your credit reports at the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. No one can view your credit file or credit score until you temporarily lift or permanently remove the freeze. This makes it extremely difficult for identity thieves to open new credit accounts in your name.
How credit freezes work
Freezes are governed by federal law and are completely free for everyone to place, lift, or remove.
You must contact each credit bureau individually to freeze your report with that bureau.
Freezes remain in place permanently unless you lift or remove them.
You can temporarily lift freezes when you need to apply for new credit by providing a PIN.
Freezes don't affect your credit score or existing creditor access.
What is a credit lock?
A credit lock is a credit monitoring tool offered by each credit bureau that lets you quickly lock and unlock access to your credit report. Like freezes, locks prevent lenders from viewing your report and opening new accounts. But there are some major differences.
How credit locks work
Locks are programs offered by credit bureaus, not controlled by federal law.
Locks may be free initially but often require a paid subscription for continued use.
The process to lock and unlock your report is faster than freezes.
Locks may automatically re-lock after a specified period of time.
Credit locks don't have the same legal protections as freezes under some state laws.
When to use freezes vs. locks
So in what situations are freezes or locks most appropriate? Freezes offer the highest level of security and legal protection from identity theft and credit fraud. They're a great option for most consumers, especially those who don't plan to open new credit accounts frequently.
Credit locks can provide added convenience by allowing you to quickly lock and unlock your reports. They may be suited for those who need to apply for new credit more often and are willing to pay for the service. However, locks don't have the same legal backing as freezes in some states.
The best practice may be to freeze your credit reports and only unlock them when you plan to open a new line of credit. For instances where you need to repeatedly lock and unlock over a short period, a lock could make sense. But for maximum security and legal protection, freezes are still the recommended route for most. For more, here's how to "thaw" your credit instead of a full freeze or unfreeze.
The Nintendo Switch 2 rumor mill seems to have been churning almost since the Switch originally launched, yet for the last seven years, Nintendo has been mostly silent on the issue. The company did recently break its silence on its plan for its newest console, but, surprise: It still didn't reveal much.
With a lack of any official intel, it's easy to dismiss any new claims as mere speculation. Still, I think some Switch 2 rumors are more solid than others, and may actually give us a glimpse into what Nintendo has planned for what is possibly the most anticipated new console in years.
Nintendo confirms the Switch 2's existence
The best rumors aren't rumors at all: On Tuesday, May 7, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa posted on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the company would, "make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year."
That doesn't tell us much, but it is the first time the company has publicly acknowledged the existence of the Switch 2. Plus, we now have some timeline for some official Switch news: By the end of this fiscal year, we'll get at least a glimpse into what Nintendo is planning for its newest console.
If the original Switch is any indicator, we may get quite a bit of information on the initial announcement: The Switch's first reveal video showed off its now-famous ability to "switch" from TV to handheld mode, as well as its ease as a portable multiplayer machine. Hopefully, any Switch 2 news offers us at least the same level of insight.
Rumors with a bit of credibility
Last month, writer Ramón Varela dropped a breakout piece for Spanish outlet Vandal that included several claims that hadn't circulated before. Those claims were then corroborated and expanded upon by Mobapad, a company that makes Switch controllers and accessories.
While all rumors should be taken with a grain of salt (and a massive one at that), there is reason to put stock in Vandal's reporting. The outlet's piece on the "Switch Pro" in 2021 actually got many of the details correct, for what turned out to be the Switch OLED. While Vandal was incorrect in predicting the Switch OLED would output 4K when connected to a TV, it accurately reported Nintendo would increase the display size without increasing the size of the console, and that the company would use an OLED panel for the display rather than an LCD. It also correctly claimed the upgraded stand would resemble a Microsoft Surface's stand, and that the dock would have USB 3.0 ports, as well as an ethernet port.
That's not to say you can expect every claim in Vandal's latest report to be true. But it's good to know the rumors aren't coming from a source with zero credibility, and it certainly helps that a Switch accessory maker can back some of them up.
Old Joy-Cons, new connections
The rail design of the current Switch Joy-Cons is iconic: You align the Joy-Con's rail with the corresponding rail on the Switch, then slide and click it into place (hence, the Switch's famous "click" sound effect).
For the Switch 2, it seems likely Nintendo is sticking with a similar Joy-Con design, which makes sense: Detachable controllers are a fun way to make a portable console instantly multiplayer—although I hope they've figured out a way to prevent stick drift going forward. However, one big difference is the new Joy-Cons may connect with magnets, rather than by rail. Vandal doesn't share many details about how this magnetic tech actually works, but Mobapad says they're made with "magnetic suction" and use an electrical current. Perhaps there's some type of locking mechanism that clicks into place once the magnets do, similar to the locking system in the current Switch.
In any case, switching to a magnetic connection rather from a rails option would likely mean your old Joy-Cons wouldn't be fully compatible with the Switch 2, unless Nintendo or a third-party made magnetic rail attachments for them. That said, Mobapad believes the current Joy-Cons will be compatible at least via Bluetooth, and both outlets think the existing Pro Controller will be as well.
Mobapad also says the Joy-Con buttons are getting an upgrade. The SL and SR buttons are supposedly going to be metal, and Nintendo is adding a third button to each of the Joy-Cons. In addition, there will be a new function button below the HOME button on the right controller.
Vandal says that the latest rumors don't definitively say one way or another whether the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with original Switch games, but report that manufacturers "believe and assume" that the console will be backwards compatible.
I'm with the manufacturers here: If Switch 2 isn't backwards compatible, that sounds like a disaster for Nintendo. The Switch was the first Nintendo console since the GameCube that wasn't backwards compatible with the generation before it. (It would've been difficult to fit a Wii U disc in the Switch's cartridge slot anyway.) But seeing as the Switch 2 is a likely spiritual successor to the OG Switch, it would be silly to expect customers to upgrade to the latest console generation without an option to play their existing Switch library.
Nintendo, you already made us buy all the best Wii U games as Switch ports. Please don't make us do it again.
Beefier hardware
Specifics on hardware specs are still pretty hard to come by in the Switch 2 rumor mill, but we do know the Nvidia is likely to be involved. An unnamed source told Reuters back in February that Nintendo was planning to use a custom Nvidia chip for the Switch 2, while a previous Vandal report indicates Nintendo is planning to use an Nvidia chip based on the GeForce RTX 30 series. If rumors are to be believed, this chip is known as the T239, a customized version of the existing T234 chip.
Vandal believes the hardware will support DLSS (deep learning super scaling), which uses AI to create upscaled frames, and that the Switch 2 will support ray tracing, a modern lighting technique that produces realistic lighting environments. These changes, plus a rumored 4K output, would definitely put the Switch 2 well above the original in the graphics department. And if outlet Centro LEAKS is to be believed, the Switch could also launch with 12GB of RAM. (Centro corroborates many of Vandal's leaks, as well.)
Even if we had the exact hardware specs in-hand, we wouldn't know for sure how powerful the Switch 2 really could be. That's because Nintendo will likely underclock the chip to balance the system's power with its portability, as it does the current Switch. If Nintendo allowed us to use the SoC's full potential, it would likely drain the battery too quickly and overheat the system. You can overclock your Switch, improving performance in demanding games like Tears of the Kingdom, but it isn't recommended.
All that to say, it's safe to assume the Switch 2 will increase the graphical performance of the current Switch, but the difference will not necessarily be seismic, especially if you're coming from a Sony or Microsoft console, or even the possible PS5 Pro. But Nintendo has never prioritized having the best quality graphics: As long as the next-generation of Nintendo's IP looks and plays great, and there continues to be support from third-party developers on the platform, the Switch 2 will do what it's supposed to.
Games should look good in handheld mode, too: Mobapad says the system will come with an 8-inch display, larger than even the 7-inch display on the Switch OLED. and 1080p resolution. All current Switches have a 720p display, so even though the Switch 2 won't run at 4K in handheld mode, it should look crisper than anything we've seen so far. That said, many outlets, including Centro, believe the Switch 2's display will be LCD, not OLED. That's a bit surprising:
The Switch 2 is likely not coming this year
If you're waiting to pick up an OLED Switch because you think the Switch 2 is right around the corner, you might be waiting a while longer. Vandal and other sources believe Nintendo is planning on a early 2025 launch, which would put the gap between console generations at eight years. That would track with Furukawa's promise of an announcement by end of this fiscal year.
Vandal says that accessory manufacturers believe Nintendo is waiting until they have a larger catalog of games for the Switch 2 before launch, which isn't a bad strategy: Nintendo launched the 3DS without enough killer games, and it tanked the handheld's first year. (It was also too expensive, but that's a story for another day.)
Whatever's Nintendo's reasoning for holding off on the Switch 2, it likely won't be on shelves in the immediate future, or in time for the holidays. If you've been holding out, you're missing out on a lot of great games, so unless you're OK waiting up to another year, you may want to pick up a Switch.
Apple doesn't put a middle-click button on its mice anymore. Instead, the company now makes two types of mice for its Mac devices—the trackpad (available for desktops via the Magic Trackpad) and the trackpad-like Magic Mouse. But even if you're using one of the touch-focused options that Apple ships with your computer, you can still add a middle-click function to speed up your workflow.
Apple Magic Trackpad
To use this trick anywhere but a MacBook, you'll need an Apple Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse.
What you can do with middle-click
Anyone who's ever used a mouse on PC knows that the middle-click button is a part of the scroll wheel, which Apple's current mice don't have. You can click the scroll wheel to execute certain functions, which vary depending on how the mouse is programmed. Macs still have access to these functions, since you can use third-party mice with them, and they include:
Open links in the background in your browser
Close browser tabs
Paste selected text in your Mac's Terminal
These things can save you a lot of time and they're really convenient. If you're switching to Mac from Windows, you're going to find Apple's lack of focus on the middle-click frustrating.
How macOS lets you middle-click by default
Although Macs don't ship with the middle-click button, you can use the Command-left click shortcut to execute a middle-click. This works really well, but it's a little inconvenient compared to pressing one button.
There's a better way to middle-click on your Mac
Credit: Pranay Parab
If your Mac uses a trackpad or Magic Mouse, you can add a simple, free utility called MiddleClick-Sonoma to give it a middle-click feature. The app binds the middle-click to a simple three-finger tap gesture, which is easy to execute on either device. It'll open links in the background on all browsers and close tabs, too. You can select any text in Terminal, and the three-finger tap also pastes it quickly in the app. In my experience, all these features work perfectly every time.
To install MiddleClick-Sonoma, go to its GitHub page and download the zip file. Open it and drag the app to your Mac's Applications folder using Finder, which will complete the installation. You may see a security warning from Apple, but the app is safe. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security on your Mac, and click Open Anyway to run the app.
It'll ask for Accessibility permissions, which are required to allow the app to function. Once this is granted, the last step is to ensure that the app starts when your Mac boots up. To do this, go to System Settings > General > Login Items on your Mac and hit the + button under Open at Login. Use the search bar to find MiddleClick and add it. Now, the app will run as long as your Mac is running.
Apple Magic Mouse
The Magic Mouse is Apple's take on a traditional pointer, but it doesn't middle-click.
Remember to disable the Look Up gesture
Credit: Pranay Parab
By default, the three-finger tap gesture on your Mac is reserved for Look Up. This allows you to select text and look up its meaning, definition, or other information about the term from the internet. I've always found this gesture a little annoying, as I keep accidentally firing it up when I don't need it.
Since MiddleClick uses the same gesture, it's best to disable Look Up to make sure that your middle-clicking isn't interrupted. You can do this on your Mac by going to System Settings > Trackpad > Point & Click. Now, disable Look up & data detectors. That's all you need to do to ensure you can middle-click in peace.
A paid alternative that has more features
Credit: Pranay Parab
Although MiddleClick-Sonoma is great and free, it requires a bit of setup, and the app is usually forked once a year as someone updates it to work with new versions of macOS. This means that you may have to reinstall the app annually and set it up all over again, so long as you keep updating your Mac regularly (you should).
For some people, that's a big hassle. You can avoid this by opting for a paid app, and I think Middle is worth the asking price of $8. Its developer also made Rectangle, which is a window manager app that we've recommendedmultiple times. Middle is easier to install and setup, and has the advantage of automatic updates (for as long as the developer chooses to support it).
It also allows you to configure other gestures to execute the middle-click. If you don't like the three-finger tap, you can choose instead to use a Three Finger Click, Four Finger Tap, or One Finger Force Touch. This app also lets you disable the middle-click action in certain apps, which is nice to have.
Most things are faster to do with the keyboard than with the mouse, but not every app is built with the keyboard in mind. That's where where Shortcat comes in. This free Mac application allows you to quickly search for and click things like buttons, links, and fields in applications, all in a few keystrokes. There's a bit of a learning curve, granted, but once you get past that it can speed up almost anything you do on your computer.
Shortcat is triggered with a keyboard shortcut—by default, CMD-Shift-Space. Trigger this shortcut and you'll see a search bar and yellow boxes with two-letter codes for everything in the menu bar and every clickable item in the current window.
Credit: Justin Pot
Search for the thing on the screen—either by typing the two-letter code or by just typing for the thing you're looking for. When you see the thing that you want to "click," simply hit enter—the result will be just as though you'd moved the mouse and clicked that item. You're not limited to clicking: you can double-click by hitting enter twice quickly or right-click by holding Control when you press enter.
Credit: Justin Pot
This works with native Mac applications, which is to be expected, but I was delighted to learn that it also works in web browsers. You can, for example, search for a link you want to open and then hit enter to open it.
Credit: Justin Pot
This works not only in the browser but in Electron apps. It's okay if you don't know what that means—this is relatively obscure stuff—but to oversimplify, Electron apps are basically just websites running in a dedicated browser. Slack works this way, as do a lot of applications at this point.
This is, admittedly, a niche application, but for me it scratches an itch. Keeping your hand on the keyboard is generally better ergonomically, and typically a lot faster, than reaching for the mouse. With Shortcat running I reach for the mouse a lot less, which I really enjoy.
It’s easy to love your roof when it’s relatively new and doing its job. How long that honeymoon period of roofing affection lasts depends a lot on the type of roof you have over your head—while some roofing systems, like metal roofs or slate tile roofs, can last for more than 50 years with proper maintenance, those of us who have flat or low-slope roofs on our homes aren’t so lucky. While flat-roof systems have an official lifespan of about 25 years, anyone who actually has a flat roof knows you’re lucky if you get a decade out of them before they start to leak and otherwise show their age. There’s a reason roofing companies always offer a 10-year warranty on these roofs, after all.
Even on a flat roof, the most common sources of leaks are the seams—spots where there are changes in plane, flashing, skylights, or vent pipes. If your roof starts leaking those are the places where you begin your inspection, so it makes sense that if you eliminate the seams, you eliminate the problem. If you have a flat roof on your house that needs to be repaired or replaced, it’s worth it to consider what’s known as a seamless roof system or a monolithic roof.
What is a seamless roof systems?
A seamless roof system (sometimes called a “monolithic” roof) is just what it sounds like: A roofing membrane that is one continuous layer without any seams. These systems are self-flashing, meaning they don’t require any additional seals around vents or chimneys. It’s typically applied in one of two ways:
Liquid. Many seamless roofing systems are applied as a liquid (silicone, acrylic, or urethane), often using reinforcing materials made from fiberglass to increase strength. The liquid is rolled or sprayed onto the roof surface and worked into all seams and gaps, then dries to a seamless and waterproof finish.
Spray foam. Another approach is sprayed-on polyurethane foam, which expands into all voids and seams, sealing them off, then dries to form a sturdy, waterproof layer.
It’s important to note that these aren’t just the roof coatings you can buy at a hardware store that can help extend the life of your flat roof, which are applied like paint. While the application process can be superficially similar, they’re complex systems that need to be installed precisely in order to get a truly seamless and waterproof result.
When installed as new, many seamless roofing systems involve layers of reinforcing membrane that are sandwiched between liquid applications. But these roof systems can also be applied over an existing flat roof, if the roof is still in decent shape, including shingled roofs, metal roofs, or rubber roofs—as long as they’re low-slope or flat. Roofs with a lot of pitch can still have a seamless system applied, but the results are usually less than ideal, as these systems are designed for flat areas. Companies like Kemper System and Everseal have roofing systems that involve repairing and reinforcing an existing flat roof and then applying a monolithic coating that seals everything into a seamless installation, typically with a warranty between 20 and 50 years.
Benefits
Seamless roofing systems offer a lot of advantages over traditional roofs:
Durability. As noted, warranties for seamless roof systems can be as long as 50 years, and typically last at least 20 years without the need for notable maintenance or repair. Seamless roofing systems are flexible—they expand and contract in the heat and cold along with your roof, which reduces the chances of cracking or other leaky damage.
Energy efficiency. These roofing systems act as reflective barriers that keep your roof cool and protect the roofing deck from damaging solar radiation. This extends the life of the roof and also helps keep the house cooler, reducing energy costs.
Costs. The low maintenance and long life of a seamless roofing system usually translates to a lower cost over time, since you won’t need to have roofers come by every few years to fix up leaks, or replace the roof every decade or so.
Hitting the road for Memorial Day weekend? According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), you won't be alone: The organization estimates that 43.8 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home this Memorial Day weekend (Thursday, May 23 through Monday, May 27)—up 4% from last year.
“We haven’t seen Memorial Day weekend travel numbers like these in almost 20 years,” Paula Twidale, senior vice President of AAA Travel said in a recent news release. The current record was set in 2005, when 44 million people celebrated the unofficial start of summer by getting out of town.
This year, AAA predicts that roughly 3.51 million Memorial Day weekend travelers will fly to their destination—up 4.8% from 2023—while around 1.9 million will take trains, buses, and cruises, an increase of 5.6% over last year.
Road trips are proving to be the most popular way to kick off the summer of 2024. According to AAA's projections, 38.4 million people will travel by car over Memorial Day weekend, more than any other year since the organization started keeping track of this figure in 2000.
While that will likely increase your chances of hitting traffic—whether you're traveling locally or long-distance—certain days will be busier than others. To help you plan your trip, AAA has predicted the best and worst times to drive this Memorial Day weekend. Here's what to know.
The best and worst times to drive during Memorial Day weekend 2024
Using data from INRIX, a firm providing transportation insights, experts at AAA have determined that these are the best and worst times to hit the road this Memorial Day weekend. The times listed below are all applicable in your local time zone.
Thursday, May 23
Worst time: 12—6 p.m.
Best time: Before 11 a.m. / After 7 p.m.
Friday, May 24
Worst time: 12—7 p.m.
Best time: Before 11 a.m., after 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 25
Worst time: 2—5 p.m.
Best time: Before 1 p.m. / After 6 p.m.
Sunday, May 26
Worst time: 3—7 p.m.
Best time: Before 1 p.m.
Monday, May 27
Worst time: 3—7 p.m.
Best time: After 7 p.m.
Other things to note:
Gas prices should be similar to last year's national average of roughly $3.57 per gallon, though AAA experts indicate that fuel costs could increase once the summer driving season is in full swing.
Also, if your road trip takes you anywhere near one or more of the country’s major metropolitan areas, AAA has additional information available on when traffic will be the worst, broken down by the city and route.
The bottom line: A lot of people will be traveling over Memorial Day weekend, so give yourself plenty of time to get to your destination.
“Travel times are expected to be up to 90% longer than normal," Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at INRIX said in the AAA news release. "Travelers should stay up to date on traffic apps, 511 services, and local news stations to avoid sitting in traffic longer than necessary."
In an era when employer-sponsored retirement plans like 401(k)s have become the norm, pensions are becoming an endangered species. A pension is a retirement plan that guarantees a steady income stream to retirees for life, with the employer bearing the investment risk. In contrast, 401(k) and 403(b) plans are defined contribution plans where employees shoulder the investment risk and must carefully manage their retirement savings.
While pensions were once prevalent across industries, economic pressures and accounting rule changes have led many private companies to freeze or terminate their pension plans. However, there are still a few bastions where traditional pensions survive. Here are some of the jobs that still offer this coveted retirement benefit.
Government jobs
If pensions are your priority, government jobs are the way to go. Many government jobs at the federal, state, and local levels still provide pension plans for their employees. This includes roles like public school teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other civil servants. The retirement benefits are usually part of the compensation package negotiated by public employee unions.
Utilities
Utility companies like electric, gas, and water providers frequently still have pension plans. The regulated nature of utilities has allowed some to maintain their defined benefit pension plans.
Unions
Jobs covered by union labor agreements, particularly in industries like transportation, manufacturing, or construction, are more likely to include a pension as a hard-won benefit.
Military
After serving for 20 years or more, members of the armed forces are eligible for a military pension that pays lifetime retired pay.
Some corporate giants
While rarer than in previous decades, a small number of large corporations still offer pension plans. These include some automotive companies, airlines, and other legacy companies with a heavily unionized workforce.
The appeal of pensions is obvious—they provide retirees with a dependable income stream not tethered to market returns. But the costs and risks associated with paying pension benefits have led to their decline. For most workers today, a 401(k), IRA, or similar defined contribution plan is their primary employer-sponsored retirement vessel, putting investment responsibility on their shoulders. Pensions, while fading, do still exist for certain professions, particularly in the public sector.
When it comes to soothing sore muscles, I have two go-tos: heat, and massage. I’ve always had to enjoy those things separately, though. For a quick and easy "massage," a foam roller does the trick; and for heat, I use a heat pad or, on my way to and from the gym, the heated seats in my car. But now there’s a product that combines them, and it’s genius: the HotRock heated roller.
Technically it’s not a “foam” roller, because it’s not made of foam. It’s a hard plastic cylinder, hollow inside, that plugs into the wall. One end has a little screen (to display the temperature) and four buttons to turn it on and control it. The other end has a door, inside which you’ll find the attached power cord.
So, yes, you need a wall outlet to use this thing. (Sort of. More on that in a minute.) It’s the size of a pretty standard mini foam roller, a little under 13 inches long. The heated area, supplied by wires that wrap around it underneath the cover, is about the middle 6 inches of the roller. If you’re hoping to warm up a wide area, say your upper back, you’ll need to make multiple passes.
The outside of the roller is encased in faux leather (“marine-grade vinyl,” they call it) and it’s allegedly removable—although it seems to be a pretty tight fit. Dirt and debris wipe off, so you don’t need to remove the sleeve for cleaning.
How to use the HotRock heated roller
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
HotRock sent me a roller to test. Following the manufacturer’s instructions, I opened the little door, pulled out the power cord, and plugged it into the wall. The HotRock came with a drawstring bag that’s supposed to hold heat in while it’s warming up, so I used that as instructed.
Here’s the basic procedure:
Plug the cord (found inside the little door) into a wall outlet.
Press the power button to turn on the LCD screen.
Select the temperature (between 125 and 175 degrees, in 10-degree increments).
If you want to use it for more than 30 minutes, press the timer button and use the up and down arrows to set the time (up to 180 minutes).
Optionally, slip the drawstring bag around it while it warms up.
When the roller is up to temperature, take it out of the bag. You can use it while it’s still plugged in.
How long does it take the HotRock to heat up?
The HotRock is advertised as heating to 175 degrees in just five minutes, but I found it took a bit longer—around eight minutes with the drawstring bag. (The company says that it will feel like it’s up to temperature a few minutes before the internal sensor reports the same number.)
If you want a lower temperature, it will get there more quickly. I found it got to 130 degrees in about three minutes.
How hot should I set the HotRock?
The top setting of 175 was great for rolling my back through layers of clothes, but that was definitely too hot to be comfortable on bare skin. I found the lowest setting of 125 to be perfect to roll a bare leg.
There are other heated massage tools out there, like this microwaveable MojiHeat, but they don’t get as hot—MojiHeat gets up to 140 degrees for 30 minutes. If you want the higher settings or the longer time, the HotRock is a better option—but it’s nearly double the price, and you have to deal with the power cord.
Is the power cord a problem?
You would think the cord would get twisted or tangled if you use the roller while it’s plugged in, but I didn’t find that to be a problem. Usually you’re rolling it back and forth in a small area, and the cord has enough room to move to withstand that just fine. The cord is also long enough that I didn't feel tethered to the wall; nine feet is plenty.
Conveniently, the roller is big enough on the inside that you don't have to wrap or fold the cord carefully. Just stuff it in, it'll be fine.
But since not every location has a wall outlet within nine feet, I wondered if it was possible to use the HotRock after unplugging it. I heated it up to 175, then put the cord away and started a stopwatch. The roller maintained a nice level of heat for several minutes, and around five minutes it was pleasantly warm but no longer anything I’d describe as “hot.” That would be enough for a quick warmup session, if you don’t have access to a wall outlet in the place where you do your foam rolling.
Are there any health benefits to the HotRock?
It’s really just another massage tool, so the benefits are “it feels good.” The evidence on massage for recovery and health is mixed; some sources find it helps recovery or aids in mobility. Most experts would say to use heat and/or massage if they feel good to you.
My only real complaint about this type of device is that when I’m in the mood for heat on a muscle (ahh, relaxing), I’m usually not in the mood to get on the floor and move around, maintaining appropriate pressure on the body part I’m rolling (so much work!). But I know that some of you love your foam rollers, so this might be a welcome addition.
The HotRock website has testimonials from athletes, and honestly the one I found most compelling was the Crossfit coach who gets to the gym before 5 in the morning, and it’s so cold in the winter. She turns on the building heat, makes herself a coffee, and does a rolling session with her heated foam roller. That sounds heavenly.
Pros and cons of the HotRock
Pros
Combines heat and self-massage
Cord stows away easily in the center of the roller
Adjustable heat up to 175 degrees F
Auto-shutoff timer
Cons
No beep to let you know when it’s up to temperature
Need to be near an outlet to use it
Pricey compared to microwaveable rollers
Specs
Temperature settings: 135, 145, 155, 165, 175 degrees
Android 15 is in the works over at Google HQ, and there are plenty of changes to look forward to. But in my view, the best part of future Android updates aren't some flashy new features: Instead, I'm most excited for these new security features that should make everybody's Android phones safer.
Private space
"Private space" is a new security feature in Android 15 that lets you hide apps containing sensitive information from view of the home screen or app drawer. This is an awesome change: Whether you're handing your unlocked phone to a friend, or someone cracks your PIN and goes snooping through your apps, any programs you designate to the private space will be hidden from view.
This is a great idea for financial apps, like banking and money-transfer apps, but also for apps containing private information. Perhaps you want to keep certain messaging apps out of sight, or a particular files app from your public screen.
Even better, notifications from apps you place in your private space are hidden as well. That way, no one will see when someone has sent you a message if that messaging app is in private space, nor will they see any alerts from your bank.
By default, private space lives at the bottom of the app drawer, but you can choose to hide it from view entirely as well. Either way, you can set a new PIN for private space that's separate from your phone's passcode. That way, even if someone breaks into your Android, they won't know the PIN for private space, and all the apps therein will be protected.
Theft Detection Lock
I have to say, Google really upped the ante with Theft Detection Lock: This feature can detect when someone takes your Android out of your hand, and either runs, bikes, or drives away with it. Google actually worked to figure out each "common motion associated with theft" in order to build that sense in Android.
Once your Android does detect a theft, it locks itself right up. For the most part, thieves need your Android unlocked in order to access the phone and its data. Unless they were sly enough to spot your PIN before taking the phone, a locked phone is essentially useless.
If a thief does manage to take your phone without detection, Android has some other tools this year: If the thief disconnects the phone from the internet, theft protection may kick in and lock the phone. If they fail to enter your PIN too many times when trying to access sensitive settings, the phone will also lock.
This one isn't an Android 15 exclusive, either: As long as you're running Android 10 or newer, you can access it.
Authentication lock, à la Apple
Google is adding one of Apple's best security features to Android this year: authentication lock. This security measure ensures that even if a thief is able to force a factory reset on your stolen Android, they won't be able to proceed with set up without providing the credentials for the Google Account connected to the device. (Now that Android has authentication lock, by the way, there may be a rise in a common scam on stolen phones and devices. Don't fall for it.)
Extra security steps, à la Apple
Google is also adding another great Apple security feature to Android: When you disable Find My Device or extend the time before your screen automatically locks, Android will require your phone's passcode or biometric authentication before proceeding. In addition, "enhanced authentication" requires biometric authentication when you try to change "critical settings" on your Google Account or device. That includes when changing your PIN, disabling theft protections, or trying to access your passkeys from a new location.
It's similar to Apple's Stolen Device Protection, which requires a Face ID or Touch ID scan when accessing certain sensitive settings.
Remote Lock in Find My Device
Let's say your phone is stolen, and you can't remember your Google Account password in order to lock the phone via Find My Device. Google's new Remote Lock feature lets you lock your phone by providing your phone number and authenticating yourself on another trusted device. From here, you can remotely reset your phone if you want to ensure no one can access its data. This feature will be available on Android 10 and newer later this year.
In the same way that cranking up blues music can serve as a balm to a troubled soul, sinking into a deeply sad movie can be just the thing to give you a sense of catharsis. After all, everyone loves a good wallow once in a while—and in an era of highly calculated blockbusters designed not to offend anyone, it’s oddly refreshing to watch a movie that’s unafraid to make you feel bad.
It takes more than a mere unhappy ending to join the ranks of the all-time most depressing movies, however. These 30 flicks favor a pervasive sense of existential gloom, whether they are drawing attention to the plight of people facing unimaginable true-life circumstances, or simply inviting us to explore a breadth of emotions the Avengers can’t quite channel.
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
A Czech immigrant and factory worker in the 1960s is losing her eyesight and desperate to pull together the money to secure an operation for her son that will spare him the same fate. In spite of the fantasy musical numbers that sustain Selma (Björk), and her own best intentions, fate and the greed of those she trusts conspire to bring her to a tragic end. The musical interludes are spectacular, but the contrast between Selma’s dream worlds and her real life circumstances only serves to heighten the sense of tragedy and injustice. On the bright side: this is a period piece, and we know that the American healthcare system could never force anyone into such dire straights today. Phew.
Sticking with the problematic master of mirth, Lars von Trier, it’s hard to argue that you’re not getting exactly what it says on the tin when you sit down to watch a movie called Melancholia. (No refunds.) Here, von Trier adds a science fiction-ish twist to a story of modern malaise. The titular rogue planet is on a collision course with Earth, and two sisters handle that destiny in very different ways. The result is a string of depressive episodes, infidelity, and death by suicide that all eschew the hope that we might make some sort of wary peace with death.
Where to stream: Netflix, Hulu, The Roku Channel
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
A symphonic ode to the misery of addiction, Darren Aronofsky’s second feature plays like an X-rated version of the anti-drug films you watched in high school. Over the course of two punishing, stylishly filmed, and artfully edited hours, we watch as four characters’ lives fall apart as they try to use drugs—from heroin to diet pills—to fill the empty places inside. It doesn’t work out: Jared Leto gets gangrene from an infected injection site, Jennifer Connelly turns to prostitution to get the money for her next score, and Marlon Wayans winds up in prison, abused by the guards. And then there’s Ellen Burstyn, who starts the film a lively, red-headed retiree and ends it a vacant-eyed, ashen amphetamine junkie in a squalid nursing home. Drugs are bad, mmmk?
Where to stream: Paramount+
Speak No Evil (2022)
I get that horror films are supposed to be scary, but then there are those than are less scary than they are unrelentingly bleak. Which is distressing in a different way? Regardless, this 2022 Danish film is as grim as they come. It follows a young family that meets a nice couple and their son while traveling and accepts an invitation to stay at their home. TO tell you what happens next would be a big spoiler, but I'd almost like to save you the angst of experiencing it. Needless to say, only bad things happen, and in the cruelest manner imaginable—including to young children. Bad feelings all around, and one of the most hopeless endings ever. For some reason it's getting a Hollywood remake with James MacAvoy?
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+
Sophie’s Choice (1982)
In flashbacks from just after the war, we learn the story of titular Holocaust survivor Sophie (Meryl Streep), who during those years, had been forced to decide which of her children would live and which would die. As with the William Styron novel on which the film is based, it’s a powerful, fact-based narrative that, unfortunately, has become a sort of shorthand for any difficult decision.
Where to stream: Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, Crackle, The Criterion Channel
Come and See (1985)
Director Elem Klimov fought Soviet censors for nearly a decade to release his film, a truly harrowing look at the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of a Belarusian teenager who joins the anti-Nazi resistance following the invasion of his village. As the occupation continues, even survival for Flyora comes to feel like a curse; the accumulated horrors (including the deliberate burning of a church with dozens of people inside, an event that really took place) makeCome and See one of the best war films ever made—because all the greatest war films are really anti-war.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Nicholas Cage won an Oscar for portraying a suicidal alcoholic who drives to Vegas with a trunk full of booze and an intent to drink himself into oblivion in this critically acclaimed and horrifically bleak film from writer/director Mike Figgis, adapting the semi-autobiographical novel by John O’Brien (who died by suicide shortly after selling the movie rights). I saw it once more than a decade ago, and to the best of my recollection, it involves nearly two hours of watching Cage guzzle hard liquor in a dingy hotel room while scream-crying, intercut with scenes of a sex worker (Elisabeth Shue, also Oscar-nominated) being subjected to a horrific sexual assault. I might have some details wrong, but it'll be a while yet before I can watch it again to verify.
Where to stream: Max
The Mist (2007)
The titular mist (not to be confused with The Fog) settles over a town in this nihilistic Stephen King adaptation, putting a bunch of locals at each other’s throats after they become trapped in a grocery store at the end of the world. Frank Darabont’s film makes clear that there’s no outside evil that can remotely compete with the ignorance, fear, and religious extremism that we’re faced with on a daily basis. Once that’s clear, the movie pushes things 10 steps further, ending on a note that’s either a perfect summation of its message or unbearably cruel. Probably it’s both.
Where to stream: Freevee, Starz
Cure (1997)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s serial killer drama feels a bit like Seven early on, but grows increasingly more philosophical and esoteric as it goes, despite maintaining a chilly detachment from all of the murders it depicts. Police detective Kenichi Takabe is on the hunt for a killer, even as his own home life is imploding. The killer, we eventually learn, is no killer at all, instead someone adept at manipulating others into doing his work for him. The movie toys with the idea that there might be something otherworldly at play, but that’s less horrifying than the case it makes that we are, each of us, capable of incredibly dark acts, provided we’re given just enough of a push.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
The Road (2009)
An unnamed man and his son wander through a bleak, desolate, post-apocalyptic America in search of a rumored safe haven to be found near the coast. Where other stories of this type invite us to have some fun with the idea that we might be clever enough to survive (and often throw in some zombies for good measure), The Road (as with the Cormac McCarthy on which it’s based) makes clear there’s unlikely to be much to appreciate about the collapse of civilization.
Where to stream: Starz
Children of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men suggests that we’re not much more than five years away from civilization’s collapse after a period of war, natural disaster, and economic depression. So the idea that we still have five years on all of that is pretty hopeful, but otherwise, the world depicted here—in which infertility has become an epidemic—is one of deep desperation and a total absence of hope. As much as any film here, and thanks to Cuarón’s careful eye as a director, the sense of a world over the brink is in every shot.
Where to stream: Starz
Alien 3 (1992)
While the first two Alien films were hardly laugh riots, David Fincher’s (troubled) sequel is almost certainly the most boldly disturbing franchise entry in the history of Hollywood sequels. The movie begins with the deaths of almost all the survivors from the previous film (and the gruesome autopsy of a beloved character) before dropping Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) into a prison colony in which the most likable character (Charles S. Dutton) is a serial murderer and convicted rapist. In an era of franchises increasingly calculated to be as inoffensive as possible, I’m a big fan of its risk-taking, but hoo boy is it dark.
Where to stream: Starz
Triangle (2009)
A twisty-turny film that at first plays like a slasher-movie at sea, but then quickly turns into something far more disturbing. Jess is off on a boat trip with some friends, offering a slightly sketchy explanation for the absence of her autistic son, who was meant to join them. A sudden storm finds the group seeking shelter about a strangely empty ocean liner—empty except for the person who keeps killing everyone. The film soon evolves into a time-loop science-fiction thriller, before revealing itself to be a punishment of mythological proportions.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi, The Roku Channel, AMC+, Crackle, Freevee
Timecrimes (2007)
Another sci-fi mind-bender involving messing about with time, this Spanish thriller follows the tragic temporal fate of Héctor (Karra Elejalde) and his wife Clara (Candela Fernández). Héctor spots a woman in the woods, naked and unconscious. Going to investigate, he's attacked by a mysterious man covered in bloody bandages. Fleeing, he winds up in the middle of a bizarre time travel experiment, one which sends him back in time and into a past that he only makes worse. And then makes worse again. And again. The fiendishly clever film from Nacho Vigalondo suggests that neither our best intentions nor all the time in the world can erase our most selfish mistakes.
Where to stream: Hoopla
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Plenty of films tweak audiences for our willingness to wallow in onscreen horrors (see Rear Window for a cheerier example). Belgian mockumentary Man Bites Dog puts us through the wringer by putting us in the place of a film crew following a vicious serial killer. There’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek style here, which does nothing to lessen the impact of the film crew’s increasing sympathy with the killer, who ultimately become accomplices to his actions. Man Bites Dog asks deeply uncomfortable questions about not just our tolerance for on-screen violence, but about the extent to which we’ll stand aside in the face of real-world horrors, or even join in given the right incentives.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Heather Matarazzo made a brilliant debut in Todd Solondz’ Welcome to the Dollhouse Dawn Weiner, an extremely unpopular middle schooler whose life becomes a series of rejections, assaults, bullying, and disappointments. While the character is charming, this isn’t a movie about a plucky nonconformist who beats the odds, it’s about the psychological trauma faced by those who don’t fit in, and the terrible choice between staying true to yourself and accepting the resulting abuse, or hiding your light with in a bushel in the hope you’ll find a little peace.
Where to stream: Tubi
Precious (2009)
Gabourey Sidibe’s 16-year-old Precious can neither read nor write and, as the movie opens, is pregnant for the second time as a result of a series of rapes by her father, even as her uncaring mother subjects her to physical and verbal abuse on a regular basis. Unlike many characters in these movies, there’s a hint of hope for Precious—a transfer to a new school; the attention of a well-meaning teacher—but there road to (maybe) get to a better place is a dark and rocky one.
Where to stream: Tubi
Revolutionary Road (2008)
The horror in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road is in the white-picket-fence conformity of the 1950s. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite post-Titanic in a story that sees the walls closing in on a young couple trying to make a go of it in a stifling world, before their efforts to escape into something more spiritually fulfilling threaten their relationship and eventually, their lives. The bright, clean streets of the title’s Revolutionary Road come to feel as dystopian as those in another movie’s apocalypse.
Where to stream: Paramount+
La Strada (1954)
Federico Fellini was known for films filled with color and fantastical imagery, and there’s a bit of that in his story of simple-minded Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), purchased by widower and street performer Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), previously married to Gelsomina’s late sister. Gelsomina bright spirit and kind heart are gradually ground down by the cruel treatment of her new husband; when she finds a companion in another street performer (a clown, in this case), Zampanò’s jealousy leads to tragedy, even though the strongman can’t be bothered to show his wife any affection. It’s a beautiful film, and a shattering one.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
The Plague Dogs (1982)
Snitter (John Hurt) and Rowf (Christopher Benjamin) escape from a cruel animal testing laboratory in this adult animated feature adapting the novel by Richard Adams (Watership Down). I'll skip over details of the experiments to which the two were subjected, except to say that they're both thoroughly cruel and also entirely reflective of real-life animal testing practices. The world at large is, unfortunately, not much kinder to the two escaped dogs than their former prison was. It's rather lovely, in its way, and beautifully animated...but animal lovers, especially, will find it rough going. Which is certainly the point.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee, Shout Factory TV
The Father (2020)
Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Anthony, the titular father, at the end of his life and living with severe dementia. It's a brilliant performance in a movie that tells its story entirely from Anthony's perspective, his disorientation playing out as frequently horrifyingly disjointed moments in a life losing all connective tissue. In privileging the point of view of the patient, rather than the family or caregivers, the movie is intensely humane, but it doesn't soft-pedal the experience, and there's little comfort to be found.
Where to stream: Starz
All of Us Strangers (2023)
A romantic ghost story on the surface, All of Us Strangers follows lonely screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) as he starts a relationship with his very mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), the two of them the only residents of an imposing new apartment building. It's a relationship that draws Adam to return to his family home, where he finds his parents seemingly alive and well, despite them having died decades earlier. Without offering too many spoilers beyond that, the movie goes to very dark places from there, providing a strong reminder that loss is an inevitable part of life, yes, but also that the only real comfort is in forgetting and moving on.
Where to stream: Hulu
Threads (1984)
A particularly effective take on the nuclear-war-is-bad-actually genre of the early and mid 1980s (see also: Testament and The Day After), this British film takes a chilling, faux documentary approach to the end of days. A young couple in Sheffield is getting ready to build a life and a family together when war breaks out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, with a nuclear attack occurring on a NATO base about 20 miles from the city. The two are separated, and that is only the beginning of the horrors faced by Karen Meagher's Ruth Beckett. The emphasis is on the resulting breakdown in law and social order, with an ending shot that's a genuine punch to the gut.
Where to stream: Tubi, The Criterion Channel, Shudder, Mubi
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
There are moments of light in Manchester by the Sea, and it doesn't build to an ending that'e entirely crushing...but there's an awful lot of pain and anger along the way. Casey Affleck plays Lee, who is surprised to find out that he's been assigned custody of his deceased brother's son. The situation forces him to confront his past in the title town and, as we come to understand why sullen, alcoholic Lee can barely get through a day, it becomes clear why his past is holding him back, and will continue to do so. (It's that bad.)
Where to stream: Prime Video
Aftersun (2022)
Initially, and on a surface level, Aftersun is a bright and charming look at a vacation at a cheap resort in Turkey involving a divorced dad (Paul Mescal, whom we've already discussed) and the daughter (Frankie Corio) he doesn't really see enough of. But there are unsettling elements from the very beginning, and a growing unease creeps into our perspective as an audience. We soon understand that what we're seeing is a memory, a grown woman's attempts to understand her father's life and death with only a child's memories to work from. That fun trip soon becomes something melancholy, and deeply poignant.
Where to stream: Paramount+
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
Robert Bresson’s film opens with the gift of a donkey named Balthasar to a sensitive farm girl, Marie. The two are separated following a family tragedy, with the once-beloved beast of burden winding up as nothing more than a pack animal for a family that doesn’t care for him beyond his ability to perform labor. Marie, meanwhile, ends up in a deeply abusive relationship, and, though fate reconnects woman and donkey at intervals over the years, neither is having a particularly good life, and neither winds up with a particularly happy ending. It’s a lovely movie, in many ways, but it’s definitely a banger in the depressing animal-story genre (and just maybe, the donkey is supposed to be a metaphor, but let’s try not to think too much about that).
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Cries and Whispers (1972)
While I’d never describe Ingmar Bergman as maudlin, it’s certainly the case that his best films, while masterpieces of acting, directing, and screenwriting, are deeply depressing, if not entirely pessimistic. Here, Agnes (Harriet Andersson) slowly dies of cancer while her sisters struggle with their own problems and insecurities, finding themselves unable to provide the needed support. The good work and genuine care of the maid, Anna, further exacerbates the feelings of inadequacy that keep the family from connecting when it’s most truly needed.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
The Rapture (1991)
A young swinger (this is 1991, when such terms were still in the parlance) played by Mimi Rogers becomes a born-again Christian after a sect convinces her that the Rapture is imminent. Her new piousness is challenged when her husband is murdered, and her despair leads her to contemplate taking her own daughter’s life (to get her to heaven faster, naturally). And that’s not even the depressing part. Fearlessly depicting her character’s transition from hedonism to zealotry to unimaginable despair, Rogers gives the best performance of her career; too bad it’s in a film you’ll almost definitely only want to watch once.
In assembling this list, I struggled with how many Holocaust films to include; there are many, enough to populate an even longer list than this all by themselves. For better or worse, I will let Roman Polanski’s The Pianistrepresent the whole, and certainly it is one of the most unsparing in its depictions of that particular historical horror. Based on the memoir by the Polish-Jewish musician Władysław Szpilman (played by Adrian Brody, who won the Oscar), the movie takes us through the entire span of the war; as things get worse and worse and worse for the Polish Jews, Szpilman loses everything, including the love for music that is his only lifeline. Though its legacy is tarnished for being directed by Polanski, The Pianist remains a stunning accomplishment in the artful depiction of the worst of humanity.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi
Umberto D. (1952)
Any movie can be sad, but it takes a special flavor of cinematic hopelessness to get a film banned by the government for being too depressing. Yet that’s exactly what happened to this story of an elderly Italian man (Carlo Battisti) struggling to keep a roof over his head after he is evicted; when that proves too tall an order, he elects for finding a home for his beloved dog before he ends his own life. Performed by a cast of mostly non-actors, Umberto D.’s grim realism proved a bit too much for the Italian government, which felt it painted too bleak a picture of the state of the nation in the wake of World War II, and subsequently “banned the export of films deemed unflattering to Italian society,” according to Peter Becker, film historian and president of the Criterion Channel.
When you buy something, you can do what you like with it—within reason. When it comes to our property, we might assume that “within reason” generally covers anything that doesn’t impact someone else’s property or safety, so when you get the urge to go digging around in the dirt, it’s no one’s business but ours. But whether you’re establishing a garden, trying to remember where you buried the ransom money, or launching a spectacular landscaping project, you shouldn’t just run out there and start digging. And, legally, you can’t. The reasons you should think twice about digging on your own property go beyond your local laws and involve your health, your safety, and your insurance premiums.
It’s harder than you think
First of all, digging is very hard physical labor. Sure, TV shows make it seem like digging a 6x6 hole in the ground to hide bodies is something one person can accomplish in a few sweaty hours, but the truth is very different. Just like shoveling snow, digging is a workout; in fact, digging a hole in your yard can be even harder than shoveling snow because your yard is not just a big cube of uniform dirt. It’s laced with roots, rocks, and man-made infrastructure (more on that below), which means you’re likely to hit something more challenging than mere dirt. You should learn about proper digging technique while also making sure you hydrate, wear protective gear (e.g., gloves and a breathing mask), and protect yourself from direct sunlight while you work.
You probably need a permit
Laws vary from area to area, but chances are really high that you’ll need to get a permit before you dig—even if you’re digging on your own property. Most local governments require digging permits for the same reasons they require permits for a lot of other projects. The permitting process not only alerts the local authorities that you’re doing work with the potential to impact the rest of the community, it also triggers the inspection process that ensures you’ve done the work to the correct standard.
Utility lines
One of the main reasons you shouldn’t just go digging on your property, though, is because of buried utilities. Gas lines, water lines, and even electrical lines may crisscross under your property, and if you hit one with your spade, auger, or other tool, you could cause a lot of damage, disruption, and even injury.
Just about every area of the country legally requires you to “call before you dig,” usually by calling 811 (or using an online equivalent). The utility companies will send out an inspector who will mark the location of utility lines with different paint colors so you can avoid them when you actually commence your digging project.
Even if you think you can get away without checking on this, you shouldn’t. Many utility lines are just a few feet underground, which makes them very easy to hit accidentally. If you flood your neighborhood or cause a gas leak, you might be held liable for damages, and if you failed to call 811 before digging, your own insurance probably won’t cover the claim.
Other buried stuff
It’s not just utility lines you have to worry about, either. At least when you call 811 those lines get marked for you—there can be a lot of stuff under the ground on your property that you may or may not be aware of, like:
Storage tanks
Septic systems
Irrigation or sprinkler systems
Swimming pool pipes or wiring
Old oil tanks
If you aren’t the original owner of the property, you may not be aware of old stuff like this, especially if the home was switched to community sewer or went from oil to gas heat at some point. You can try to do some research to find out what might be out there, but regardless, you should proceed with caution and never assume you’re just digging into dirt.
Another potential danger you might encounter when digging on your property is pet graves. Laws vary, but people often bury beloved pets on their property, but over time, grave markers can get washed away, leaving you to stumble on a gruesome surprise. Few people will disclose a pet cemetery on their property, so if you’re not the original owner, you should take the possibility into account before you break ground.
Shifting and subsidence
Finally, digging always carries a risk of ground shifting or subsidence. If you’re digging a hole that’s deep enough to stand in, you’re digging a hole that might collapse and entomb you. Again, the movies make digging deep holes look stable and straightforward, but the fact is you have no idea how the ground on your property will react to having a large portion of it removed.
There’s a viral cottage cheese wrap making its way around the internet and it’s being touted as a high-protein bread replacement for sandwiches and wraps. Well, I love cottage cheese and I do love a sandwich, so how bad could it be? Well, folks, it’s not great.
I don’t know if I’m surprised that the internet misled me, or just disappointed. I’m one of those weirdos that actually really likes cottage cheese—the 4% fat variety, of course. It’s one of my go-to warm weather snacks when paired with fresh fruits, so I was eager to buy my first tub of the season and enjoy it in this new application. It's not weird to try and pack in the protein and reduce carbs, but this creation really falls short. Not only does the wrap replacement suck in a practical sense, but I actually think it messes up the cottage cheese flavor too.
What is the viral cottage cheese wrap?
The main idea seems to be that you can blend cottage cheese with some egg parts to make a loose batter of sorts. Spread the mixture in a flat rectangle on a sheet tray and bake it in the oven. Et voilà: A perfect, high-protein, gluten-free wrap that you can pack with many leafy greens, cold cuts, and maybe even more cottage cheese. There are many variations of this cottage cheese wrap including this one which only uses egg whites, this one which uses whole eggs, one that fries it all in a pan instead of baking it in the oven, and I even came across another that uses flour (which I can’t find at the moment)—so what exactly are we doing, then?
On TikTok, this process takes 12 seconds from blend to bite. What you don’t see is how damn long it takes to bake, and quite frankly, how you actually need to over-bake it for this to work at all. Throw out everything you know about cooking eggs with this “wrap.” Egg whites begin to set at 140°F, which is usually what we aim for because the proteins build tender bonds that you can easily break with a fork or with your teeth.
The bread replacement, however, requires the proteins in the eggs to cook at high temperatures—some recipes instruct for 400°F—and form many strong, rubbery bonds. You know how sometimes when you fry an egg for a few minutes too long, and the edges of the white turn crispy and brown, and you struggle to break it even with a fork? Yep, that’s what’s required here. The high-moisture cottage cheese in the mixture interrupts some of the egg’s bonds, so the ones that are connecting need to cook until browning, or else the whole thing falls apart into a mushy, and quite unappealing, mess.
The uneven results
I actually don’t even have a problem with cooking the “bread” until browning. Eggs are an incredibly versatile ingredient, and if you can cook them until they’re chewy enough to mimic bread, well, what wonderful innovation! I take issue with the wrap in practice.
The batter looks smooth and promising before baking.Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
I saw multiple TikTok videos that seem to have run into the same problem I did—my layer of cheese-egg batter spread out in the oven and became uneven. (This is almost guaranteed to happen if you have sheet pans that warp under higher temperatures.) The thin side burned and the thicker side was okay.
My batter creeped over to one side and part of it died.Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
The burnt and crispy section broke off when I tried to fill the wrap, and the thicker section was flexible but borderline mushy in parts. I ate half of it, generously offered the other half to my boyfriend (he declined), and tossed the other half.
The second time I tried it with whole eggs instead of just egg whites, and the flavor improved slightly. Nonetheless, I still encountered the same issues with irregular cooking—burnt sections and mushy spots. If you chose to make this high-protein “bread,” I would recommend a recipe with whole eggs, and ditching a sheet pan to use a parchment-lined casserole dish instead. Then you don’t have to deal with warping. That said, I won’t be making this again.
Make these high-protein options instead
Baking something for 35 to 45 minutes to get a product you might very well chuck is pretty much my definition of not worth it. You’re better off keeping it fast, simple, and—most of all—delicious. Make a stunning, fluffy omelette with some cottage cheese inside, or a frittata (which is an omelette for lazy people) which only takes about 10 minutes in the oven. These options are also high-protein and gluten-free, and you can fill them with veggies and meats too. If you must have a wrap, try pan-frying some plain ol’ egg whites, like with these dumpling wrappers, but use a larger pan. It’s way faster (we’re talking one to two minutes per wrap), about as high-protein and low-fat as you can get, plus you don’t have to bake these to hell and back just so they’ll hold some ham. Happy bulking, everyone.
At I/O 2024, Google announced a great new AI feature for Google Photos, simply called Ask Photos. With Ask Photos, you can treat the app like a chatbot, say, Gemini or ChatGPT: You can request a specific photo in your library, or ask the app a general question about your photos, and the AI will sift through your entire library to both find the photos and the answers to your queries.
How does Ask Photos work?
When you ask Ask Photos a question, the bot will make a detailed search of your library on your behalf: It first identifies relevant keywords in your query, such as locations, people, and dates, as well as longer phrases, such as "summer hike in Maine."
After that, Ask Photos will study the search results, and decide which ones are most relevant to your original query. Gemini's multimodal abilities allow it to process the elements of each photo, including text, subjects, and action, which helps it decide whether that image is pertinent to the search. Once Ask Photos picks the relevant photos and videos for your query, it combines them into a helpful response.
Google says your personal data in Google Photos is never used for ads and human reviewers won't see the conversions and personal data in Ask Photos, except, "in rare cases to address abuse or harm." The company also said they don't train their other AI products with this Google Photos data, including other Gemini models and services.
What can you do with Ask Photos?
Of course, Ask Photos is an ideal way to quickly find specific photos you're looking for. You could ask, "Show me the best photos from my trip to Spain last year,” and Google Photos will pull up all your photos from that vacation, along with a text summary of its results. You can use the feature to arrange these photos in a new album, or generate captions for a social media post.
However, the more interesting use here is for finding answers to questions contained in your photos without having to scroll through those photos yourself. Google shared a great example during its presentation: If you ask the app, "What is my license plate number?" it will identify your car out of all the photos of cars in your library. It will not only return a picture of your car with your license plate, but will answer the original question itself. If you're offering advice to a friend about the best restaurants to try in a city you've been to, you could ask, "What restaurants did we go to in New York last year?" and Ask Photos will return both the images of the restaurants in your library, as well as a list you can share.
When will Ask Photos be available?
Google says the experimental feature is rolling out in the coming months, but no specific timeframe was given.
Your MacBook has a few features built in to ensure that its battery's health stays intact. It will automatically shut down the laptop if it gets too hot, since higher temperatures reduce the battery's life and capacity to perform. It'll also slow down charging when the battery is at 80% if it determines you won't need a full charge. While these features are good enough for most people, there are some battery management apps that will allow you far greater control over your MacBook's battery health.
Battery Toolkit is the best free app I've found to manage your MacBook's battery. It allows you to keep your MacBook's battery percentage between two predefined values, lets you stop charging your MacBook even when it's connected to power, and even lets you force your MacBook to charge to 100%. Some of these features require you to pay on other battery management apps, such as AlDente.
Battery management apps are best used by people who like to keep their MacBook plugged in all the time. Plenty of people use their MacBooks with the lid shut, where the laptop is connected to a monitor, an external keyboard, and a mouse. In these situations, plugging in and unplugging the Mac repeatedly to prevent overcharging is a little cumbersome. Why put in all that effort when an app can manage your battery for you?
Installing Battery Toolkit on your MacBook
To start, download Battery Toolkit from its GitHub page. Your Mac may prevent you from installing the app because it's not from a well-known developer, but it is safe to use. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway to install it.
Set up the app for optimal battery management
Credit: Pranay Parab
Once the app is running, set it up in a way that works for you. Click Battery Toolkit's icon in the menu bar up top and select Settings. Go to the Power tab and set a minimum and maximum percentage value. That way, your MacBook will start charging when it hits the minimum value and stop charging at the maximum. I've set it up to keep my MacBook between 30 and 80%, but you can choose the values that work best for your use. Click OK when you're done.
Note that the app doesn't allow you to let the minimum percentage drop below 20%, and the lower limit for the maximum charge is 50%. This is to prevent damage to the battery.
With the initial setup done, Battery Toolkit will run in the background and do what you've asked. You can keep the MacBook plugged in all the time and the app will ensure that its battery stays within the predefined threshold. But there are times when you need to change things around, and the app lets you do that too. Click Battery Toolkit's menu bar icon to see these features.
You can toggle on Disable Power Adapter to temporarily stop the MacBook from charging while it's plugged in. There are two more options here that you should know about:
Request Charging to Full
Request Charging to Maximum
These options can be confusing because of the way they're worded, but it's quite easy to understand. Charging to full will force your MacBook to charge to 100%, which you should use when you know you're going to be away from a power adapter for a long time. Charging to maximum will charge the laptop to the upper limit you've specified in the app.
You can also temporarily disable all of Battery Toolkit's settings by clicking its menu bar icon and selecting Quit Battery Toolkit.
If you’re thinking of adding a tree to your landscape, whether you want to create shade, provide an animal habitat, or just for looks, there’s a better alternative you might not have considered. Rather than just one, why not plant a few trees spaced closely together? A "pocket forest" like this can add increase the biodiversity of your yard, provide runoff control for water, and cool the surrounding landscape. Here’s how they work, and how to go about planting one.
What is a pocket forest?
A pocket forest is a densely planted mini-forest that’s made up of multiple native species of trees. The goal of this compact forest is to add dense plants for shade, animal habitat, and erosion control to your yard. (If you don’t have space for trees, you can grow a thicket, or a densely planted grouping of native shrubs.)
Mini forests are also nice to look at, and they can improve the view and enjoyment of your yard without the intense maintenance required by a lawn. Although the initial investment in a pocket forest might be more than a lawn, they can save you money and time on maintenance while using less water.
How much space do you need for a pocket forest?
A pocket forest can be planted in as little as 200 square feet of space, and though common wisdom says that trees can damage nearby structures, this is not always true, and depends on the species of tree and the growing conditions. With a little pruning, you can safely plant a variety of species relatively close to buildings as long as the trees are properly maintained.
How to choose trees for a pocket forest
In order to plant a pocket forest, you’ll need enough one and two-year-old native tree and shrub saplings to plant your area while leaving two to four feet between each specimen. If you plan to plant near a building, make sure to choose saplings that don’t have invasive root systems.
In order to determine what plants are native to your area, you can consult your local university extension. Your municipal government might also have listings for trees that are native to your location, and be able to recommend trees that are less likely to cause damage if you plan to plant them near a building.
When to plant a pocket forest
Planting should happen during the dormant season in your area to allow plants to establish themselves. Dormancy occurs at different times of year and depends on seasonal temperatures and rainfall in your area, so consider this another opportunity to consult your local university extension for information particular to your climate.
If it’s not dormant season now, luckily there are some things you can do to prepare, like removing existing plants and planning your space.
A timeline for planting a pocket forest
Four months before planting
Choose your space and measure it to plan for how many saplings you’ll need. Plants should be placed between two and four feet from each other, so you can estimate your plant spacing based on that. It’s a good idea to contact your local nursery at this point to let them know in advance approximately how many plants you’ll need and to make sure they have some in stock. At this point, you can also begin removing any existing plants from your chosen area to create optimal conditions for future planting.
Three months before planting
Three months before planting, you should use the “lasagna method” to prepare the ground for your saplings and kill off any remaining plants. To accomplish this, lay down a layer of cardboard over the whole area, followed by a layer of leaf compost or leaf mold. Cover the compost with two to three inches of wood chips.
One month before planting
Now’s the time to pick your plants. Choose native plants that are appropriate for your area, keeping in mind the size of their root systems and sun needs. Since you’ll likely have a pretty big order, getting your plants a little bit ahead of time is a good idea.
Planting
Lay out your plants and arrange them so that they are between two and four feet apart to plan spacing, then then dig your holes and plant your saplings. Though small saplings only require a shovel’s depth hole, you can still save yourself some time by arranging your plants in their containers ahead of time so you don’t run out of space while you’re planting.
After planting
Once your saplings are in the ground, make sure to mark them with a surveyor stake or another easily recognizable marker for future identification and weed removal. This will help to keep from getting your sapling confused with a weed. You can also add some compost to the soil surface or use compost tea to improve the soil to give your new trees a boost.
You should perform structural pruning on your saplings as they grow, removing less healthy, lower branches and branches that are not able to support their own weight. Otherwise, your trees can be left to grow on their own. You can choose to take a hands-off approach to watering your growing pocket forest, knowing that a few of your saplings might die, or you can improve their chances by watering them for the first two or three seasons they’re in the ground. You shouldn’t need to water your native trees once they are established (that is, after the first three years).
Most Americans have some sort of home security system in place—usually a series of connected cameras. Now, there are a number of companies who are starting to sell home security systems that don’t just alert, but fight back. These home-defense systems aim to teach intruders (or your teenager sneaking back in after curfew) one hell of a lesson: by deploying pepper spray, smoke bombs, paintballs, ear-piercing alarms or a “disorienting fog.”
Disorienting fog
“Security experts understand that it’s extremely difficult to steal without being able to see,” is how MyShield’s public relations representative Morayah Horovitz explains the idea behind their security system. MyShield is an indoor, battery-operated device that can be integrated with existing security systems or used on its own. On detecting motion, it will request a visual confirmation from the homeowner, and once it is received, it will deploy a non-toxic but “disorienting” fog created using a polytechnic composition. You can create a network of MyShield devices that cover your whole home, and is $1300 for just the cost of the device, plus a $40 per month subscription. Essence, the company that makes MyShield, has already sold over a million similar units over the last decade in America and Europe, and claim a high level of success. While it feels a little apocalyptic, some in-home smog was the least extreme of the options available.
Paintballs
Although it’s pre-market, PaintCam Eve is a fully funded Kickstarter that will begin shipping in 2025. Available in three models, Eve is an AI-enabled smart security camera that can also shoot your eye out with a paintball. Seeing as the AI in the various doorbells I’ve tried still occasionally ID my mailman Steve as a package and routinely think the neighbors' cat is a solicitor at my door, I asked the team at Eve how confident they were about their system. Like MyShield, it turns out none of the reactions are automated. Rather, Eve allows you to create warning zones around your home, where possible threats receive a verbal or audible warning first, while the system alerts the homeowners and they decide whether to engage the paintballs. At least, that’s how it works “in manual mode," as a representative for the executive team named Hana explained in an email. Regarding their AI, “the core of this system is a deep learning neural network that has been extensively trained on a vast dataset of images and scenarios. This training includes thousands of examples of different objects, faces, pets, and potential threats.” Basically, it works like all other AI does.
In terms of potential damage, if you’ve ever gone paintballing, you know the balls generally aren’t lethal—but it turns out, they do routinely hurt people, resulting in eye and ear damage and the rare death. While these are “non-lethal paintballs, similar to those used by law enforcement for peaceful deterrence” according to Hana, this brings up a good point: Paintballs, when used by police, incur a higher rate of injury than recreational paintball users because the victim isn’t expecting it. I haven’t broken into a home since I got home late from a concert in 1993, but I am absolutely sure I wasn’t expecting high-speed projectiles. As for pets, there are three models—Eve, Eve+ and Eve Pro—and the latter two “include an advanced Animal Detection feature.” Standard Eve users will have to trust that AI recognizes cats better than my Ring camera. Eve is predicted to start at $2165 when it launches for retail, with an additional subscription at around $38/month.
Pepper spray (and more)
While Deep Sentinel’s new FlashBang technology will be available to residents in the future, for now it’s only on a case-by-case basis—demand is mostly from businesses. Still, if fog and projectiles aren’t enough for you, perhaps pepper spray, smoke bombs, strobes, and sirens are your flavor. FlashBang itself is part of the security system that Deep Sentinel deploys, and while the company and systems have been around for a while, FlashBang is on the verge of launch, having completed beta testing. The core system relies on AI, with integration for live "guards." FlashBang are deployment devices with encryption and security on board. Deployment of the heftier tactics like smoke and pepper spray require human approval, much like the other products detailed above. David “Selly” Selinger, CEO and Co-founder of Deep Sentinel, assured me that all the medical effects of the tactics used were temporary, and would amount to nothing more than some coughing, nasal and throat irritation, going so far as to mention that the smoke uses food-grade particles. Still, there are many reports that pepper spray and smoke bombs may have greater health effects, particularly on menstrual cycles. FlashBang will start at $2000, but since it is part of a whole security system, there are additional hardware and subscription costs.
Is it legal?
I asked each company about the legality or liability concerns of having such a system. Eve punted the responsibility to homeowners, saying, “we advise buyers to check their local laws regarding property protection.” Selinger noted that “all of the FlashBang components are legal in all 50 states.” I checked with two attorneys in different states, Oregon and Arizona, and while laws vary by city, state and county, generally the law in play is the Castle Doctrine, or “Stand Your Ground." The idea is that individuals can use “reasonable force” to protect themselves against an intruder in their home. The courts come into play when you have to interpret what is reasonable, and what constitutes a threat. Additionally, there’s great variance even in Stand Your Ground laws from state to state, and both lawyers pointed out, it’s hard to argue self-defense if the homeowner isn’t even in the home at the time these security tactics are deployed.
Is it ethical?
I asked both Eve and Deep Sentinel to respond to the natural reaction that people might have to the severity of their defense systems. Hana from Eve replied, “For those who haven't experienced the fear of an intruder on their property while their family is home, our system might seem excessive. However, those familiar with that fear understand the necessity of a system designed not to harm the intruder, but to scare and mark them, aiding law enforcement in apprehending them more swiftly.” Selinger echoed the sentiment. “Yes, perhaps it will come off strong, but in a world where criminals are allowed to feel they have the upper hand, I believe people should feel like they don’t have to be victims.”
Hana raises a good point—these systems just scare people, which isn’t (usually) lethal. If they can deter intruders (and home owners from taking more severe action themselves), perhaps that’s a good thing. The idea that intruders are “marked” by eye burn or smoke burn or paintballs should make it easier to track an intruder down. Still, these feel extreme. And what none of these systems factor in is the probability that "home security" will have a whole new meaning when your neighbors get fed up with the ear-piercing alarms and tactical training ground you’ve created on your property. Even paintballs have nothing on a well-worded HOA letter.
AI has been the dominating force in this year's Google I/O—and one of the biggest announcements that Google made was a new Gemini model customized for Google Search. Over the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out a few AI features in Search, including AI Overviews, AI-organized search results, and search with video.
AI Overviews
When you're searching for something on Google and want a quick answer, AI Overviews come into play. The feature gives you an AI-generated overview of the topic you're searching for, and cites its sources with links you can click through for further reading. Google was testing AI Overviews in Search Labs, but has been rolling out the feature to everyone in the U.S. this week.
At a later date, you'll be able to adjust your AI Overview with options to simplify some of the terminology used, and even break down results in more detail. Ideally, you could turn a complex search into something accessible for anyone. Google is also pushing a feature that lets you stack multiple queries into one search: The company used the example of “find the best yoga or pilates studios in Boston and show me details on their intro offers, and walking time from Beacon Hill," and AI Overviews returned a complete result.
As with other AI-generated models, you can also use this feature to put together plans of action, including creating meal plans and prepping for a trip.
AI-organized results
In addition to AI Overviews, Google Search will soon be using generative AI to create an "AI-organized results page." The idea is the AI will intelligently sort your most relevant options for you, so you won't have to do as much digging around the web. So when you're searching for something like, say, restaurants for a birthday dinner, Google's AI will suggest the best options it can find, organized beneath AI-generated headlines. AI-organized results will be available for English searches in the U.S.
Search with video
Google previously rolled out Circle to Search, which lets you circle elements of your screen to start a Google search for that particular subject. But soon, you'll also be able to start a Google search with video. The company gave an example of a customer who bought a used record player whose needle wasn't working properly. The customer took a video of the issue, describing it out loud, and sent it along as a Google search. Google analyzed the issue and returned a relevant result, as if the user had simply typed out the problem in detail.
Search with video will soon be available for Search Labs users in English in the U.S. Google will expand the feature to more users in the coming months.
There are plenty of reasons to love Dolly Parton. In addition to being one of the best singer-songwriters of all time, she is a fashion icon, a feminist, and a philanthropist. Her charitable contributions even helped fund the discovery of the COVID-19 vaccine. All this and she sends free books to kids?
Yes, the country star and namesake of the Dollywood theme park is also the founder of the non-profit Imagination Library. The program, which aims to provide free books to children ages five and under, was inspired by Parton's father, who was unable to read or write she was growing up—fueling the singer's own commitment to literacy.
Once you register your eligible child for the program, you will begin receiving one free book each month, shipped to your home, through their fifth birthday (up to 60 books total). According to the organization's website, since 1995 it has donated nearly 227 million books to children in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Australia, with over 29 million given out last year alone.
Signing your kids up for this service is a relative breeze. There are no complicated requirements, other than meeting the age criteria and residing in an area served by the program. Read on to discover how your family can participate.
How to sign up for the Imagination Library
To get free books from Dolly Parton (or rather, her charitable foundation), you'll first have to see if the Imagination Library is in your community. Start by visiting the organization's availability page. Once there, choose your country and enter your zip code.
If the program is available in your area, you'll have to submit your mailing address and some personal information (name and age) about your child on the next page. If online isn't your thing, contact your local affiliate to sign them up directly. (If a program isn't available where you live, the website will prompt you to join a mailing list so you know if and when that changes.)
As noted, income is not a factor in participating in Dolly Parton's book club program, so every child can participate, regardless of a family's financial situation. As long as an affiliate is in your area, you can enroll your child.
What books will I get?
Enrolling your child in the Imagination Library from birth means you'll receive up to 60 different books—one for each month of your child's life, from birth through their fifth birthday. The books selected will change monthly, but the first and last books are always the same: Each child begins the program with the classic The Little Engine That Could and wraps up with Kindergarten, Here I Come!
According to the organization, the books you'll receive will be age-appropriate and promote diversity, self-confidence, and the importance of the arts. They are also available in audio and braille formats for children with hearing or visual impairments. Past selections have included Last Stop At Market Street, Peter Rabbit, and The Big Book.
What if there isn't an Imagination Library affiliate in my area?
If there's no Imagination Library in your area, you can do the work to establish an Imagination Library affiliate.
To begin, you will need to find ways to financially cover the wholesale cost of the books, as well as the cost of mailing them, which you can do through fundraising or seeking partnerships. The books are mailed at special non-profit mailing rates, so you will also need to find a non-profit partner, such as a school district or charitable foundation, to qualify for these rates.
If you're ready to get started, click here for more tips on getting your Imagination Library affiliate off the ground and more books into the hands of kids.
Hands-off dinners are a valuable part of any home cook’s bag of tricks. That’s usually where the instant pot and slow cooker step in, but I’m not always in the mood for something that needs hours of stewing or a lot of ingredient prep. My current easy favorite is a main course that gives me the freedom to go do something else—like heat up leftover rice, or sit and rest my weary bones—and it requires very little else from me. It’s air fryer roast pork tenderloin, and you should add it to your weekly rotation.
The whole reason I bought the pre-trimmed package of pork tenderloin from Trader Joe’s was that I wanted a lean cut of protein on a tight budget. This pound of pork fit the bill. It was only five bucks, has low fat content, and it’s a mild protein that loves to be seasoned. On the subway ride home, I was pretty stoked to roast it. But then I thought of how long it would take in the conventional oven—45 to 60 minutes—and how that length of time in an arid environment would surely dry it out. This is where the air fryer saved me.
Air fryer roast pork tenderloin cooks in a jiffy, browns nicely on the outside, and stays tender and juicy in the center. The key is the convection heating of the air fryer: The fan whips hot air around the pork, rapidly cooking the protein on the outside while gently heating the inside. The typical air fryer basket, about ten inches square, is also the perfect size for a pound of pork tenderloin, perfectly fitting diagonally across. With almost no fuss (just a single flip halfway through the cooking time), you’ve got your main event set up for any accompanying side dishes.
How to roast pork tenderloin in the air fryer
1. Season the pork
I like to marinate pork for at least 30 minutes prior to cooking, but if you only have time for a heavy sprinkle of salt, pepper, and oil, so be it. If you’re marinating it, set the loin in a deep container and add the seasonings. A simple mixture of soy sauce, a spoonful of sugar, MSG, and a bit of cooking oil is usually plenty. Use your hands to thoroughly coat the meat and leave it to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or a couple hours. Flip it halfway through the marinating time.
2. Set it and forget it (but remember to flip, and then forget it again)
Set the air fryer to the “roast” setting for 350°F degrees. Arrange the pork in the basket and cook it for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping it halfway through. I recommend checking the internal temperature after 20 minutes to see if you’ve reached your desired temperature. The USDA recommends a temperature of 145°F with three minutes of rest time.
While your pork is cooking, prepare other parts of the meal, or delegate those tasks to someone else and kick up your feet for a spell. A pound of pork makes about three comfortable servings with sides. (A real boss move would be to make two roasts in the air fryer and save one for some mean Cubano sandwiches the next day.)
1. Marinate the pork for 30 minutes, or a couple hours, in a deep container with all of the other ingredients. Make sure to flip the meat around to thoroughly coat it in the seasonings.
2. Preheat the air fryer to 350°F on the “roast” setting. Arrange the tenderloin in the air fryer and cook it for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping it halfway through the cooking time. Check for doneness with a probe thermometer. Let the meat rest and cool for at least 3 minutes before slicing and serving.
Cars with screens aren’t going away anytime soon. Even as scientists bemoan their distractions, companies are embracing them for their adaptability. Case in point: Google is adding even more apps to cars with Android Auto (which runs off a phone) or Google built-in (which is powered by the car itself). Plus, devs are going to have a much easier time bringing their own games and streaming apps to cars in the future.
The news follows Google’s I/O keynote yesterday, and is one of the company’s bigger drops outside of the realms of AI or mobile phones. The best part? Google doesn’t have to do much to make it work, and neither do developers.
Essentially, Google will now bring existing Android apps to cars “without the need for new development or a new release to be created,” Google product managers Vivek Radhakrishnan and Seung Nam said in a press release. This means the Android Auto and Google built-in ecosystems are potentially about to get much larger, all while relying on work that already exists.
Any app that already works with a large screen could soon naturally also work in the car, with a new tiered system that differentiates Android apps between those built specifically for auto, those with special features on auto, and those made for tablet or phone that just happen to also work on auto. Developers looking to get in on that final tier, “Car ready mobile apps,” can request a review to participate soon, but Google will also start automatically distributing existing Android apps it considers car ready “in the coming months.”
Those concerned about safety can breathe a sigh of relief for now. While Google says it will be starting with categories like gaming apps, video apps, and web browsers, these will only work while the car is parked. There are plans to “expand to other app categories in the future,” so we have yet to see whether any car ready mobile apps will actually be available while driving.
In the meantime, Google is proactively adding a few apps to auto as well, though only to cars with Google built-in. These include Max and Peacock, as well as a version of Angry Birds. Customers with compatible Rivian cars will also soon be able to cast video content to their vehicle, a first for the famously mirroring-prone brand. Other brands are set to follow suit, though again, only those with Google built-in. Again, all of these apps will need your car to be parked for them to work.
AI chatbots are more popular than ever, and there are plenty of solid options out there to choose from beyond OpenAI's ChatGPT. One particularly strong competitor is Google's Gemini AI, which used to be called Google Bard. This AI chatbot pulls information from the internet and runs off the latest Gemini language model created by Google.
What is Google Gemini?
Bard, or Gemini as the company now calls it, is Google's answer to ChatGPT. It's an AI chatbot designed to respond to various queries and tasks, all while being plugged into Google's search engine and receiving frequent updates. Like most other chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini can answer math problems and help with writing articles and documents, as well as with most other tasks you would expect a generative AI bot to do.
What happened to Google Bard?
Credit: Google / Joshua Hawkins
Nothing happened—Google just changed the name. Bard is now Gemini, and Gemini is Google's home for all things AI. The company says it wanted to bring everything into one easy-to-follow ecosystem, which is why it felt the name change was important. You can still access Gemini through the old bard.google.com system, but it will now redirect you to gemini.google.com.
How does Gemini work?
Much like ChatGPT, Gemini is powered by a large language model (LLM) and is designed to respond with reasonable and human-like answers to your queries and requests. Previously, Gemini used Google's PaLM 2 language model, but Google has since released an update that adds Gemini 1.5 Flash and Gemini 1.5 Pro models, the search giant's most complex and capable language models yet. Running Gemini with multiple language models has allowed Google to see the bot in action in several different ways. Gemini can be accessed on any device by visiting the chatbot's website, just like ChatGPT, and is also available on Android and iPhones via the Gemini app.
Gemini is currently available to the general public. Google is still working on the AI chatbot, and hopes to continue improving it. As such, any responses, queries, or tasks submitted to Gemini can be reviewed by Google engineers to help the AI learn more from the questions that you're asking.
To start using Gemini, simply head over to gemini.google.com and sign in. Users who subscribe to Gemini Advanced can utilize the newest and most powerful versions of the AI language model. (More on that later.)
What languages does Gemini support?
Gemini 1.0 Pro currently supports over 40 languages. Google hasn't said yet if it plans to add more language support to the chatbot, but a Google support doc notes that it currently supports: Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified / Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Gemini 1.5 Pro supports 35 languages and is available in over 150 different countries and territories. The supported languages include Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified / Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
(Note: At the time of this article's writing, Google Gemini Advanced is only optimized for English. However, Google says it should still work with any languages Gemini supports.)
What features does Gemini offer?
Like ChatGPT, Gemini can answer basic questions, help with coding, and solve complex mathematic equations. Additionally, Google added support for multimodal search in July, allowing users to input pictures as well as text into conversations. This, along with the chatbot's other capabilities, enables it to complete reverse image searches. Google can also include images in its answers, which are pulled from the search giant's online results.
Google also previously added the ability to generate images in Gemini using its Imagen model. You can take advantage of this new feature by telling the bot to "create an image." This makes the chatbot more competitive with OpenAI, which also offers image generation through DALL-E.
Yes, Google Gemini is connected to the internet and is trained on the latest and most up-to-date information found online. This is obviously a nice advantage over ChatGPT, which just added full access to the internet back in September, and only for paid users who subscribe to its GPT-4 model.
How accurate is Google Gemini?
Now that the chatbot is using Gemini 1.0 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Pro, it's expected to be one of the most accurate chatbots available on the web right now. However, past experiences with Gemini have shown that the bot is likely to hallucinate or take credit for information that it found via Google searches. This is a problem that Google has been working to fix, and the company has managed to improve the results and how they are handled.
However, like any chatbot, Gemini is still capable of creating information that is untrue or plagiarized. As such, it is always recommended you double-check any information that chatbots like Gemini provide, to ensure it is original and accurate.
Is Gemini free to use?
Gemini is currently free to use, but Google also offers a subscription-based plan that allows you to take advantage of its best AI yet, Gemini Advanced. The service is available as part of Google's new Google One AI Premium Plan, which currently runs for $19.99 a month, putting it on par with ChatGPT Plus. The advantage here, of course, is that you also get access to 2TB of storage in Google Drive, as well as access to Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and more. This feature was previously known as Duet AI, but it has also been rounded up under the Gemini umbrella.
There's an app for that
Google also launched a dedicated Gemini mobile app for Android. iPhone users can access Gemini through the Google app on iOS. Currently, the Gemini mobile app is only available on select devices and only supports English in the U.S. However, Google plans to extend the available countries and languages the Gemini app supports in the future. Additionally, the mobile app supports many of the same functions as Google Assistant, and Google is positioning it to replace Assistant with Gemini in near future.
How does Gemini compare to ChatGPT?
Gemini is a solid competitor for ChatGPT, especially now that Gemini should return results more akin to those in GPT-4. The interface is very similar, and the functionality offered by both chatbots should handle most of the queries and tasks that you throw at either of them.
Even with Google's paid plan, Gemini is still a more accessible option, as its free models are more similar to GPT-4 than ChatGPT's free option is. That said, OpenAI is starting to roll out a version of GPT-4o to all users, even free ones, but it will have usage limits and isn't widely available yet.
For now, Gemini presents the fewest barriers to internet access, and can use Google as a search engine. When ChatGPT does connect to the internet, it utilizes Bing as a search engine instead of Google.
Google did share some information about how Gemini compares to GPT-4V, one of the latest versions of GPT-4, and said it actually achieves more accurate results in several fields. But as no trustworthy tests are yet available for how Gemini 1.5 Pro compares to GPT-4o, it's unclear exactly how the two newest models from Google and OpenAI compare when placed head to head. Google Gemini 1.5 Pro does offer a maximum context-token count of one million, so it can handle much longer context documents than ChatGPT can now. And Google isn't stopping there, as it plans to offer a Gemini version with support for two million context tokens, which it is already testing with developers.
Ultimately, it's hard to say exactly which one is better, as they both have their strengths. I'd recommend trying to complete whatever task you want to accomplish in both, and then seeing which one works best for your needs. Also, keep in mind that some of the most impressive features that Gemini and ChatGPT offer are not fully available yet. For its part, Google is working on other AI-driven systems, which it could possibly include in Gemini down the line. These include MusicLM, which uses AI to generate music, something the tech giant showed off during Google I/O 2024.
iOS 17.5 is officially out, bringing the latest security updates to all applicable iPhones. Alongside fixing some major security flaws that Apple needed to address, the update also had an unintended effect: It's bringing back deleted photos.
This iOS 17.5 bug has caused quite an uproar in the Apple community, with some raising concerns over Apple's privacy claims, and wondering if the company's software keeps old photos even after you've deleted them.
The big concern here is the possibility for not safe for work photos to unexpectedly rear their heads again: One Reddit user says that nudes (and some less compromising photos) that were deleted "years ago" reappeared in their recent images after updating their phone. You don't even need to be connected to iCloud, according to another Reddit user experiencing the issue. Locally stored photos are supposedly coming back, too.
Unfortunately, there isn't exactly a clear reason for what is happening here. Given that many of the photos are from years ago, it isn't likely to be an issue with the recently deleted settings on the iPhone, which only keeps photos for 30 days after deletion, in case you accidentally delete a photo and need to restore it.
It's possible that these reports could all come down to an indexing issue, some kind of corruption in the photo library, or, in the case of photos backed up online, a syncing issue between iCloud and local devices. Related to the latter point, it's possible that Apple made a mistake while trying to fix a syncing issue reported by users in a previous iOS 17 update.
The explanation is likely innocent, though: Deleted files are never truly gone from a device until overwritten, so it's possible the bug is simply resurfacing them instead of keeping them available to be rewritten. That might also explain a similar bug another user experienced where old voicemails came back.
For the moment, there isn't much you can do to avoid the bug if you already updated to iOS 17.5. However, holding off on the update isn't recommended, as it does address some security flaws that iPhone users will want to resolve as soon as possible. It's arguably more important to protect yourself from a Find My bug that could let a malicious app track your current location, than it is to prevent iOS from resurfacing your old deleted photos—however embarrassing that may be.
All eyes are on Apple's WWDC event next month. That's when the company will no doubt show off their latest operating system upgrades, including its late-to-the-party AI plans for iOS and macOS.
But AI doesn't just mean generative AI. Apple has more traditional features in the works for users to check out, some simply powered by AI. And as it happens, we just got a glimpse at a slew of upcoming iPhone and Mac features that fit that mold, specifically related to accessibility.
Apple unexpectedly announced a batch of these new accessibility features Wednesday. The company says these features are coming "later this year," which almost assuredly means they're shipping with iOS 18. Apple switches between using the language "AI" and "machine learning" to describe how these features work, but rest assured, the underlying tech is part of Apple's AI push this year.
Eye Tracking lets you control your iPhone with your eyes alone
Out of nowhere, Apple announced that both iPhone and iPad users will soon have the ability to control their devices with just their eyes. Apple says the front camera on either your phone or tablet will use AI to calibrate and set up the feature, as well as power it. Most impressive of all, you don't need any additional hardware to use it.
Once Eye Tracking is set up, you can navigate apps, use Dwell Controls to engage with elements, and replicate physical buttons, swipes, and gestures with your eye movements.
Music Haptics let you feel the beat through your iPhone
Apple added a new music feature for users who are deaf or hard of hearing: Music Haptics uses the Taptic Engine to play taps and complex vibrations along to the beat of the song. While it sounds like a great accessibility feature, it also seems like a great way to enhance the Apple Music experience for everyone. This feature works on "millions" of songs in Apple Music, but Apple has also included it as an API for developers to add to their apps.
Vocal Shortcuts and Listen for Atypical Speech
Vocal Shortcuts is a new feature that lets you assign actions to words or phrases. For example, you could set the word "Rings" to open your Apple Watch Activity Rings in Fitness. In addition, Listen for Atypical Speech uses on-device AI to learn your speech patterns, so your device will recognize the way you speak.
These features are designed for users with conditions such as cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or stroke—as these conditions affect speech.
Vehicle Motion Cues tries to prevent motion sickness
Apple wants to cure motion sickness. Vehicle Motion Cues places dots on your screen when your iPhone or iPad recognizes you're in a moving car. These dots will then move according to the direction of the vehicle: These moving dots may counter the effects of motion sickness, as Apple says research shows motion sickness happens when there's a conflict between what you're seeing and what you're feeling.
You can choose to have these Motion Cues appear automatically, or enable them manually from Control Center.
CarPlay gets some new accessibility features
Speaking of cars, CarPlay is getting a series of new accessibility features: Voice Control, which lets you control CarPlay with your voice; Color Filters, which lets you fine tune the color space of your CarPlay UI; and Sound Recognition, CarPlay will let you know when it detects sounds like car horns and sirens.
visionOS accessibility features
Remember Apple Vision Pro? That's still around, even if it isn't getting much attention lately. Still, Apple is working on some visionOS accessibility features, including Live Captions. These captions will work in conversations in-person and on FaceTime, as well as from audio in your apps. Apple is also adding new vision features like Reduce Transparency, Smart Invert, and Dim Flashing Lights, as well as support for Made for iPhone hearing devices and cochlear hearing processors.
New VoiceOver features
VoiceOver is getting new voices. Apple didn't say how many, or what they sounded like, but they're coming. In addition, the feature is getting a "flexible Voice Rotor," which lets you control how VoiceOver works, custom volume control, customizable VoiceOver keyboard shortcuts on macOS, and support for custom vocabularies and complicated words.
Magnifier
Apple's Magnifier doesn't get the love it deserves, but it is getting some new features. Coming soon, you'll get a new Reader Mode, as well as quick ways to launch Detection Mode with the Action button on iPhone 15 Pro.
Braille
There are some new Braille features as well: You'll have a new way to start and stay in Braille Screen Input, Japanese will be available, Dot Pad users have support for multi-line braille, and you'll have the ability to choose input and output tables.
Hover Typing
Hover Typing is a new feature that increases the size of the text whenever you're typing in a text field. Plus, you get to control the font and color.
Personal Voice is now available in Mandarin
Apple rolled out Personal Voice last year, an AI-powered feature that can replicate your voice during Live Speech. The feature is now available in Mandarin Chinese. In addition, you can now create a Personal Voice even if you have difficulty with reading full sentences out loud.
Speaking of Live Speech, the feature now comes with categories, and is compatible with Live Captions.
Virtual Trackpad
Apple is adding a virtual trackpad feature as part of AssistiveTouch, so one area of your iPhone or iPad can be used to move a cursor around the screen. I could see this being useful for anyone who wants a trackpad experience, especially on the larger iPads, but doesn't have a physical trackpad to use.
Switch Control
With Switch Control later this year, you can use your iPhone or iPads' camera to recognize finger-tap gestures as switches. Switch Control lets you use hardware to control your iPhone or iPad with switches, so this means you can gesture with your fingers in view of the camera to control on-screen elements.
We've talked more than once about the pomodoro technique, which is built around intensely focusing on a task for 25 minutes and taking a five minute break. There's a lot of software out there for the job, but most of them live on only one of your devices.
Not Focus Timer, an indie app that's been around in various forms for eleven years. The current version works on every Apple platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, and even Vision Pro. Your settings—including the current timer—sync via iCloud, all without you having to do much of anything other than install the app on various platforms. It's very convenient, but it's not free: The app costs $40 per year for access on all platforms.
Credit: Justin Pot
That's a lot to pay for a timer, granted, but it is really nice having a Pomodoro timer that follows you everywhere. I, for example, like to get up and walk around the house during my breaks—with this application installed I can start my break on my laptop, get up, and get my "back to work" reminder on my phone.
Credit: Justin Pot
Meaningful Things, the Germany-based four-person team behind the application, offers updates constantly—basically any major Apple feature you can think of is offered. There are versions for Apple Watch and Vision Pro. There's a live activity for the iPhone app, meaning you'll see the realtime countdown on your phone's lock screen as soon as you start a session (even if you start that session on your Mac). There are a variety of widgets available for all platforms. There's extensive support for Apple Shortcuts. There's a menu bar icon for the Mac version.
Credit: Justin Pot
I could go on, but basically if you're the kind of person who likes to take advantage of the latest Apple features, this application has you covered. Focus Timer isn't going to be the perfect Pomodoro app for everyone—the price alone means some people aren't going to touch it—but I recommend at least giving the seven-day free trial a shot. It's rare to find something that works across devices this smoothly.
Not everybody has the same reaction to noticing a new muscle pop up on their body. Some love it: “Great, I’m getting jacked!” Some are discouraged: “Oh no, I’m getting bulky.” But everyone should know that building muscle has its benefits, beyond looks and in spite of looks.
Here are seven ways your newfound muscle is a big plus, both for your health and your fitness goals.
Strength and muscle size go together
We’ve all met people who are stronger than they look, and vice versa. This has led to a myth that there are different “kinds” of muscle or strength, as if bodybuilders’ muscles are full of water or fat instead of contractile tissue. (I’m not sure exactly where this myth comes from, but it’s absolutely not true. Muscle is muscle.)
Think of it this way: The bigger the muscle, the harder it can contract. But what you do with that muscle is a matter of skill. Gymnasts are strong, but not every strong person can do a backflip. Boxers are strong, but not every strong person will be able to deliver a knockout punch.
If you train to build muscle size, you will end up increasing your strength. And if you train to build strength, chances are you will end up increasing your muscle size. That doesn’t mean you have to become huge if you don’t want to be; your diet is the main thing that determines whether you look “bulky” or not. But it's reasonable to expect at least a little bit of muscle gain anytime you're challenging your body to get stronger and fitter.
Muscle burns more calories
Muscle’s effect on our metabolism is one of the most frequently-cited benefits of gaining muscle mass, and honestly, I think it’s one of the least important. But let’s dive in, because I know you’re wondering about it.
Yes, the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn, even at rest. Muscle is a metabolically “expensive” tissue, using a lot of your food as fuel, which means that you can eat more food, and thus get more vitamins, protein, fiber, and other useful nutrients. The more you burn, the better you can eat.
Every pound of muscle you gain will burn an extra 10 or so calories each day—so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle over the course of a few years’ strength training, you’re burning an extra 100 calories each day. This may not make a huge contribution to your daily calorie burn, but it’s something. What’s less appreciated is that the more muscle you have, the more likely you are to take on harder workouts, thus burning even more calories.
I burn about 500 more calories each day now than I did years ago, when I was sedentary, and I certainly haven’t gained 50 pounds of muscle. But the more muscle you have, the more work you can do, and that snowballs. Remember, exercise is good for your health, so the more of it your body can handle, the healthier your heart and your metabolism can become.
Muscle benefits your health even if you don’t lose weight
Losing weight is often said to benefit our health, especially for people who have diabetes, other health conditions, and/or a high BMI. Losing weight can be tough, though, and gaining muscle can help those same health outcomes whether you end up losing weight or not.
For example, this study found that having more muscle mass is associated with lower mortality rates, lower body fat, and a lower likelihood of having diabetes. People with high BMIs and high muscle mass were, in this study, healthier than people who had similarly high BMIs but low muscle mass.
So even if gaining muscle doesn’t come with reduced body fat, it’s still helping you to be healthier. The researchers also speculate that some of the health outcomes we associate with high body fat may actually have more to do with low muscle mass.
This isn’t just an issue for the grey-haired crowd: We lose 3-8% of our muscle every decade starting around age 30, if we don’t train to keep it. The rate of loss typically speeds up after age 60—but, again, people who strength train tend to hang onto their muscle. You might even build more than you had in your youth.
Even if you haven’t hit age 30, think of yourself as putting muscle in the bank that you can use later. Somebody who is strong at age 25 is building the muscle (and the habits that keep them exercising!) that will keep them from being frail at age 75.
Strength training improves bone density
Besides sarcopenia, osteoporosis (a loss of bone mineral density) also contributes to the risk of devastating fractures and to a loss of independence, especially as we age. Muscle loss and bone density loss have been referred to as “musculoskeletal aging,” and it’s at least partially preventable with strength training.
Bone grows stronger when you put stress on it, which is why “weight bearing” activities are commonly recommended for people at risk of osteoporosis. That doesn’t refer specifically to weight training, but rather to activities where you’re supporting your own weight. Walking, running, and jumping are weight bearing. Swimming is not.
But weight training does also improve bone density. Unless you’re great at walking or even jumping on your hands (which, I must note, requires a lot of strength and muscle), a good way to get healthy stress on the bones of your upper body is to do plenty of resistance training. That could include training with barbells, dumbbells, resistance machines, or other tools.
Strong muscles may prevent injury
Injury prevention is a big and nebulous topic, so it’s hard to point at specific evidence that strength training in general reduces injuries in general. But ask any good coach, or any good physical therapist, and they’ll tell you that they encourage their players and patients to build strength to prevent injuries and to recover from them when they happen.
Strength training gives you stronger muscles, bones, and connective tissue like tendons. In a sports context, stronger athletes seem to be more resistant to injury. And even in everyday life—let’s say a person who might slip and fall—being strong and agile makes it easier to avoid unexpected obstacles. You may also have an easier time catching yourself when you begin to fall.
There’s also evidence that exercise, including strength training, is a useful tool in managing back pain, arthritis, and other conditions.
Muscle makes you better at running, yoga, and other activities
Maybe you’re cool with exercise, but still a bit skeptical of the benefits of strength training specifically. You just want to run the trails, take a barre class, maybe do some yoga. Well, muscle helps with those things, too.
If you’re a runner, for example, strength training helps to prevent injuries (including those nagging “overuse” injuries like shin splints and achy knees). More muscle in your legs also means a better ability to run up the hills of those trails and dodge rocks and tree roots on the way down. Stronger runners tend to be better runners.
Or let’s say you’re more into yoga. More strength and muscle will help you to be able to do more advanced poses, to do the medium-difficulty ones more confidently, and to do the easy ones with true ease. Or to put it another way: nobody ever thinks, in the middle of a yoga class, “I wish I had less core strength.”
You get the idea. Rock climbing is more fun when you’ve got more upper body muscle. Cycling is more fun when you have powerful legs. Even outside the formal sports world, muscle helps you to carry mulch in your garden, to load your suitcase overhead without endangering your fellow airplane passengers, to help a friend move without spending the next two days on the couch popping Advil. So when you notice your body gaining a little bit of muscle, just think of all the opportunities it opens for you—not just how it looks.
Brick is some seriously durable stuff—clay bricks commonly endure for a century or longer, and there are plenty of examples of brick structures that are much older than that. If you have a brick home or a brick facade, you can expect decades of service without much worry.
But nothing lasts forever, and everything has a weakness. In the case of your brick walls, that weakness is the mortar—the cement-like “glue,” visible in the joints between the bricks, that keeps your bricks together. Mortar has a much shorter lifespan—20-30 years, on average—because it’s much more susceptible to weather, especially moisture. Over time, water seeps into the mortar and freezes, cracking the mortar with its expansion. Eventually, the mortar starts to fail, and allows moisture to penetrate behind the brick, leading to eventual failure of the entire system.
If you have a brick wall that is starting to look pretty janky, the good news is that the fix is probably pretty easy and inexpensive: You just need to repoint.
Repointing
When masons refer to “pointing,” they’re talking about the mortar laid between the bricks. “Repointing” is just what it sounds like: removing damaged mortar and putting in fresh mortar to replace it. The process is pretty straightforward, and can be a pretty easy DIY project if you’ve ever worked with masonry tools before.
Determine the type of mortar you need. Modern mortars use portland cement, resulting in an extremely hard cure. That’s fine for modern bricks, which are similarly hard. But older bricks are softer and require a softer mortar that “gives” a little. You can make a good guess using the age of your home—if it’s 50 years old or less, you can go with a standard modern mortar for your repointing project. If it’s older than that you might need to do some research or consult a real mason.
Scrape out the old mortar. Using a cold chisel, a grout saw, or a joint raker, remove a layer of the old mortar. You should remove about twice the width of the vertical brick joint, typically about half an inch. You don’t want to remove too much or you can undermine the structural integrity of the brick.
Push in fresh mortar. Now you refill the joints with fresh mortar and tool it until it’s tamped in well and fills all the voids. Finish the exposed face of the fresh mortar so it looks good.
That’s it—while it takes some patience and a little skill, it’s not a difficult job. Note that you might also hear the term “tuckpointing,” which is a similar process—in fact, the term is often used interchangeably with “repointing,” although they are slightly different. Tuckpointing involves using two mortars of different colors to achieve an aesthetic effect. If all you’re worried about is maintaining your brick, you probably don’t need to worry about tuckpointing.
When to repoint
Even though repointing is relatively easy and inexpensive, you still don’t want to go through the trouble unless you have to. Here are some basic ways to tell if your brick needs to be repointed:
Age. If your brick is a few decades old, it very likely needs repointing—or an inspection, at the very least.
Crumbling mortar. Look at the mortar joints. Have they eroded noticeably (more than a quarter inch)? Are they crumbling into a dry, sandy mess? They need to be scraped out and repointed.
Cracks. If you can see noticeable cracking in the mortar and the brick, it indicates moisture penetration, so repairing the mortar is likely necessary.
Gaps. Can you see spots where the mortar has totally separated from the brick? If so, it needs repairing.
If you’re uncertain, you can perform a quick test: Take a knife or similar tool and scrape the mortar joints. If you can easily remove some of the mortar, it needs repointing, even if it looks superficially okay.
At I/O 2024, Google made lots of exciting AI announcements—but one that has everyone talking is Project Astra. Essentially, Project Astra is what Google is calling an "advanced seeing and talking responsive agent." This means that a future Google AI will be able to get context from what's around you and you can ask a question and get a response in real time. It's almost like an amped-up version of Google Lens.
Project Astra is being developed by Google's DeepMind team, which is on a mission to build AI that can responsibly benefit humanity; this project is just one of the ways it's doing so. Google says that Project Astra is built upon its Gemini 1.5 Pro, which has gained improvements in areas such as translation, coding, reasoning and more. As part of this project, Google says they've developed prototype AI agents that can process information even faster by continuously encoding video frames and combining video and speech input into a timeline of events. The company is also using their speech models to enhance how its AI agents sound, for a wider range of intonations.
Google released a two-part demo video to show off how Project Astra works. The first half of the video shows Project Astra running on a Google Pixel phone; the latter half shows the new AI running on a prototype glasses device.
In the demo video, we can see the user using their Pixel phone with a camera viewfinder open and moving their device around the room while asking the next-generation Gemini AI assistant, "Tell me when you see something that makes sound" and the AI responding by pointing out the speaker on the desk. Other examples in the video include asking what a part of the code on a computer screen does, what city neighborhood they're currently in and coming up with a band name for a dog and its toy tiger.
While it will be a long time before we see this next-generation AI from Project Astra coming to our daily lives, it's still quite cool to see what the future holds.
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