As the data breach landscape continues to evolve, companies must try to stay ahead of the curve and be prepared to respond to any type of security incident. To provide a snapshot of what could take pl...
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Monday, November 30, 2015
The Gaming, Eating, and Photography Daily Bag
Most of us don’t need anything too complicated in our bags, but we do need to be prepared for three important things in life: gaming, shooting photos, and eating. Lifehacker reader Cole Ewert’s prepared for all three (and more).
The bag is a medium sized Timbuk2 Messenger. Here’s what’s inside:
- ThinkTank Cable Management 10 (packed with various cables)
- Fuji X100s
- Orange Petzl Spirit carabiner
- Four Rechargeable AA batteries
- Monoprice 5000mAh battery pack
- Business card holder
- Spare X100s battery
- To-Go-Ware bamboo silverware
- ESEE Camp Lore knife with custom kydex sheath by Red Hills Kydex
- Maxpedition EDC pocket organizer (packed with various hygiene and safety essentials)
- Gaming dice set
If you have a great go bag with a useful organization scheme and great features, let us know! You can share your bag by posting it to your personal Kinja blog using the tag featured bag or adding it to our Lifehacker Go Bag Show and Tell Flickr pool. Photos must be at least at least 640x360. Please include information about your bag, what you put in it, and any relevant details about how you made it awesome. If yours catches our eye, we might just feature it!
What’s in my bag | Flickr
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Keep Extra Socks in Your Sleeping Bag for Toasty Feet While Camping
Make sure you stay warm in your sleeping bag after a long day of hiking by stashing an extra pair of socks in it before you even leave on your camping trip. A little foresight while you pack your gear makes sure your toes will stay toasty all night.
Especially if you go camping during cooler months, doing everything you can to stay warm can prevent you from shivering through a miserable night. Pack an extra pair of warm socks inside your sleeping bag so that you only use them when you sleep.
You probably already pack extra socks in case your feet get wet or dirty while you’re hiking or enjoying the great outdoors, so toss a pair in the bottom of your sleeping bag now, before you leave, so you don’t use a backup pair just to stay warm. If you’ve got a water bottle, fill it with hot water and put it at the bottom of your bag too, to amplify the effect of your dry socks.
How Can I Warm Up My Feet in My Sleeping Bag? | Backpacker
Image from distelfliege.
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Banish Brutal Bathroom Smells With Your Own Homemade "Poo-Pourri"
Bathroom odors can be traumatizing whether you caused it or not. Products like Poo-Pourri and Just A Drop can help keep the stench at bay, but you can easily make your own smell-be-gone spray at home.
In this video from the HouseholdHacker YouTube channel you’ll learn how to make your own pre-poop spray with essential oils and few other things you probably have lying around your home. Mix 3/4 of a cup of water with 2 teaspoons of rubbing alcohol, 2 teaspoons of hand or dish soap, and mix it all together with 40 to 50 drops of your preferred essential oil (lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, etc.). Then put in a spray bottle to keep near your porcelain throne. Just like with Poo-Pourri and Just A Drop, you add the spray to the water before you go. By the time you flush, there will be no nose-worthy evidence of the business you just took care of. You can even add food coloring to the spray so you can see the smell barrier and get some extra peace of mind.
Smell-Be-Gone Poop Spray! | YouTube
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Cultivate Mental Toughness With the Navy SEAL's "40 Percent Rule"
Developing mental toughness isn’t just about being resilient. It’s also about learning to access your reserve tank when you think you just can’t go any further.
We all think we know our limits. Whether you’re exercising, studying, or just trying to break a bad habit, there’s always that moment when you feel like tapping out. To get past that point, Jesse Itzler at Big Think explains a perspective-altering rule he learned from a Navy SEAL who came to live with for a month:
He would say that when your mind is telling you you’re done, you’re really only 40 percent done. And he had a motto: If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it. And that was his way of every day forcing us to get uncomfortable to figure out what our baseline was and what our comfort level was and just turning it upside down. We all have that will. It’s just a matter of how we apply it not just to the once-a-year marathon, but to a variety of things in our daily lives.
You are more capable than you realize, but you have to fight off the mental blocks you’ve established over the years. You can run farther, you can learn more, and you can resist your vices longer. The next time you feel like giving up, remember, you’ve still got 60 percent left.
Navy SEALs Have a ‘40 Percent Rule’ and It’s the Key to Overcoming Mental Barriers | Big Think via Inc.
Photo by Jim Swinson.
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Build Better Feedback Loops to Reinforce Good Habits
Behavioral feedback loops run unnoticed in the background of our daily lives, and affect which habits we stick with—both good and bad. Instead of letting feedback loops shape our lives in invisible ways, you can design them to foster better habits.
This post originally appeared on James Clear’s blog.
Feedback loops also manage how the human body works; let’s start by taking a look at an extreme example of a physiological feedback loop gone awry.
Robert Wadlow was born on February 22, 1918, and weighed 8 lbs 6 ounces (3.8 kg) and was 20 inches tall (0.51 m). A perfectly normal size. But there was nothing normal about what happened next.
Within six months, Wadlow had doubled in height and quadrupled in weight. As a one-year-old, he was over 3 feet tall and weighed the same as the five-year-olds in his neighborhood. By the age of five, Wadlow had exploded to 5 feet 6 inches tall. On his first day of kindergarten he wore clothes made for a seventeen-year-old. Wadlow suffered from an overproduction of human growth hormone caused by hyperplasia of his pituitary gland. To put it more simply: most humans have an internal feedback loop that regulates the production of growth hormone, but Wadlow’s feedback loop was broken.
Instead of regulating and balancing the production of growth hormone, Wadlow’s pituitary gland reinforced the production of the chemical. The more he grew, the more his body released growth hormone. It was like a car going downhill without a brake. His growth kept picking up speed.
By the age of 12, Wadlow was over 7 feet tall (2.18 m) and weighed nearly 300 pounds (130 kg). When his uncontrolled growth propelled him over 8 feet (2.54 m) at the age of 18, he went on a tour around the United States with Ringling Brothers Circus.
Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the rest of his body could not keep pace. Wadlow outgrew his nervous system and began to lose feeling in his legs and feet. His immune system began to shut down. When Wadlow died at the age of 22, he was the tallest human in recorded history at 8 feet and 11.1 inches (2.72 m) and by all indications he was still growing.
The Hidden Power of Feedback Loops
How does ol’ Wadlow relate to feedback loops in your daily life? Physiological feedback loops and behavioral feedback loops aren’t really that different. The human body is governed by a wide range of feedback loops. These systems maintain a careful balance of everything from the amount of water in your cells to the amount of hormones released into your bloodstream.
Feedback loops are always running in the background of our lives, but they influence our bodies and minds in profound ways. When each process works as intended, our bodies function properly and we remain balanced. When something in the system breaks, we steadily slip away from equilibrium. In extreme cases, things spiral out of control—like the growth of Robert Wadlow.
Here’s the important part:
Feedback loops are not only at the core of human biology, but also at the center of human behavior. Like the biological processes mentioned above, psychological feedback loops often run unnoticed in the background of our daily lives. They can influence everything from how fast we drive to how frequently we take our medications to how often we check social media. In fact, I would say that feedback loops are the invisible forces that shape human behavior.
In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can harness the hidden power of these systems and use feedback loops to stick with good habits and break bad ones.
The Two Types of Feedback Loops
“Feedback loops provide people with information about their actions in real time, then give them a chance to change those actions, pushing them toward better behaviors.” — Thomas Goetz
We can divide feedback loops into two different types:
- Balancing Feedback Loops: we will use these to moderate bad habits.
- Reinforcing Feedback Loops: we will use these to build good habits.
Generally speaking, balancing feedback loops are associated with maintaining equilibrium or oscillating around a desired level. Meanwhile, reinforcing feedback loops are associated with continuous increases or decreases. Let’s break down each type and discuss how to use it to improve your habits.
1. Balancing Feedback Loops
Balancing feedback loops pull behavior back on track and help to stabilize a system around a desired level. These systems can be very effective at both moderating bad habits and kickstarting good habits.
Here’s a common example:
Let’s say you are driving just a little too fast and you pass a digital radar sign that says, “Your Speed Is…” and displays the current speed of your car as you pass.
You might not expect it, but these signs are incredibly reliable and effective ways to change the behavior of drivers. On average, “Your Speed” signs decrease the driving speed by 10 percent. Not only that, but drivers continue to drive more slowly for miles down the road.
These signs are one example of a balancing feedback loop. The output of your current behavior (driving too fast) becomes the input for your new behavior (slowing down).
The thermostat is another example:
Imagine that you set your thermostat to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). When the temperature of the room dips below your setting, the heater comes on and warms up the room. When the temperature rises above your setting, the air conditioning kicks on and cools the room. The thermostat acts as a balancing feedback loop and keeps the temperature oscillating between a narrow range.
How can we apply balancing feedback loops to governing bad habits and building good ones? Here are a few examples:
- Want to spend less time staring at a screen? Buy an outlet timer and set it to turn off one hour before your desired bedtime each night. When the power shuts down, this feedback loop is reminding you not to spend too much time staying up late and staring at your computer screen or television.
- Want to improve your posture? Assume an upright stance and place a piece of tape across your shoulder so that it tugs on your shirt if your shoulders sag. This simple balancing feedback loop will trigger a reminder to stand up straight each time you feel a tug.
- Want to make more sales? The paper clip strategy is a simple way to build a feedback loop that will measure your progress on daily sales calls. (In fact, it can work for any repeated task.)
Balancing feedback loops are fantastic at regulating bad habits because, similar to a thermostat, they can attack the problem from two sides. On one side, they can keep unproductive or unhealthy behaviors in check by making you aware of your mistakes (like displaying your speed or automatically shutting off your outlets). On the other side, they can remind you to perform good behaviors rather than slipping back into old patterns (like a piece of tape pulling on your slumping shoulder or a paper clip sitting in a bin on your desk).
2. Reinforcing Feedback Loops
Reinforcing feedback loops increase the effect of a particular system or process. These systems can be great for building good habits and achieving peak performance because they naturally amplify and strengthen their own behavior.
Here’s one example from my own life: I am the happy owner of a Honda Accord. On the dashboard of my car, there is a light that circles the speedometer. This light changes color based on how I am driving. If I drive aggressively and accelerate quickly, the light is white. If I accelerate moderately, the color changes to light green. If I drive in a fuel efficient manner, the light turns bright green. Whenever I see the green light around my speedometer, I know that I’m saving gas and driving in the most fuel efficient way possible.
When I first bought the car, I didn’t think much of it, but now this simple light has essentially turned driving into a game where I am constantly trying to live in the green zone. The light is a reinforcing feedback loop that emphasizes many good behaviors: I save gas, I save money, and I probably drive safer and more slowly as well.
Compound interest is another example of a reinforcing feedback loop: Let’s say you start with $1.00 and get paid 10 percent interest each year. After one year, you have $1.10. The next time around, you get paid 10 percent interest on $1.10 and now you have $1.21. And so the cycle continues with each run through the feedback loop compounding into larger and larger growth. Of course, reinforcing feedback loops can amplify the impact of harmful behaviors as well. The more people hear an untrue rumor, the more the rumor spreads. Gossip is a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
How to Build Your Own Feedback Loops
I would like to offer a simple three step method for building feedback loops in your life.
- Measure
- Compare
- Adjust
Let’s breakdown each step of this framework.
Measurement is the foundation of every feedback loop. All feedback loops have one key characteristic: the output from one cycle becomes the input for the next cycle. In other words, all feedback loops measure something and that measurement becomes the starting point for the next cycle of behavior. Data improves awareness and awareness is the first step to behavior change.
Comparison is essential for making sense of your feedback loop. Measuring something is useless if it’s not relevant to you. Remember the “Your Speed Is…” sign from earlier? That reading of your current speed is only relevant when compared to the actual speed limit. It is the comparison between where measurement says you are and where you want to be that makes the next step clear. Effective feedback loops help you make comparisons that are personal and relevant.
Adjustment is the action that closes the feedback loop. Adjustments should be made as quickly as possible. The more rapid the change, the tighter the feedback loop. In the words of Seth Godin, “The best way to change long-term behavior is with short-term feedback.”
Why Some Feedback Loops Work While Others Fail
One bad habit that commonly frustrates physicians is when a patient doesn’t take their medications as frequently as prescribed. A few years ago, a company called Vitality launched a new product called the GlowCap, which was intended to help solve this problem.
Here’s how WIRED Magazine described the product:
“When a patient is prescribed a medication, a physician or pharmacy provides a GlowCap to go on top of the pill bottle, replacing the standard childproof cap. The GlowCap […] connects to a database that knows the patient’s particular dosage directions—say, two pills twice a day, at 8am and 8pm. When 8am rolls around, the GlowCap and the night-light start to pulse with a gentle orange light. A few minutes later, if the pill bottle isn’t opened, the light pulses a little more urgently. A few minutes more and the device begins to play a melody—not an annoying buzz or alarm. Finally, if more time elapses (the intervals are adjustable), the patient receives a text message or a recorded phone call reminding them to pop the GlowCap. The overall effect is a persistent feedback loop urging patients to take their meds.”
When feedback loops fail, it is often because of one of these three problems:
- Measurement isn’t automatic.
- Comparison is irrelevant.
- Feedback is slow.
The GlowCap solves all three of these problems and that makes it an excellent feedback loop. First, it tracks your consumption and reminds you when to take your pills automatically, so you don’t have to worry about measurement. Second, it is specifically tailored to your prescription, which makes it instantly relevant to your needs. Third, it provides feedback quickly when you get off track: first the light, then the music, and finally the text message or phone call. Solving these three problems is essential to building an effective feedback loop.
Rapid Feedback Leads to Rapid Change
Here’s a simple fact: most people, most of the time, don’t know where they stand on the issues that are important to them.
People want to lose weight, but don’t know how many calories they eat each day. People want to learn a new language, but they don’t know how many hours they practiced last month. People want to write a best-selling book, but don’t know how many words they wrote last week. People want to build a successful business, but don’t know how many sales calls their team made yesterday. People want to get stronger, but don’t know how much weight they lifted at the gym last week. Most people don’t measure things, and a feedback loop can’t happen without measurement.
My argument is that we should spend less time letting feedback loops shape our lives in invisible ways and more time designing the feedback loops we want and need.
In the unexamined life, it can be easy to slide into a downward spiral of bad habits and unproductive behaviors because of poorly designed feedback loops that trigger us to eat more, smoke often, and worry too much. Thankfully, the reverse is true as well. Carefully designed feedback loops can help us stick with good habits and regulate behaviors that would be unhealthy if they spiraled out of control.
Feedback loops influence everything from the bodies we live in to the choices we make on a daily basis, but most of the time we are victims of the feedback loops that surround us not the architects of them.
Feedback Loops: How to Master the Invisible Hand That Shapes Our Lives | James Clear
James Clear writes about science-based ideas for building habits that stick and mastering your craft. If you enjoyed this article, then join his free newsletter. Image by Mascha Tace (Shutterstock), James Clear.
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Millions of Internet Things are “secured” by the same “private” keys
Imagine that you had a signet ring to seal your vital documents...and then you found that 1,000,000 other people had the very same seal!
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Keep Your Fancy Plates from Breaking by Packing Them on Their Side
If you’re packing away your fancy “special occasion only” dishes or you’re getting ready to move, this packing method will keep your pretty plates from breaking.
The common practice for packing plates is stacking them on top of each other. If the box gets dropped, however, the weight of the upper plates can provide enough force and pressure to break the bottom plates. That’s why Kristin Appenbrink at The Kitchen recommends you pack them on their side. The edge of the plates can be a lot stronger than the center, and with enough padding surrounding each plate (bottom, sides, in between, and top), you’ll never have to worry about your china getting crushed into white dust. You can find more tips on storing your fancy dishes at the link below.
7 Smart Tips for Storing Your Fine China | The Kitchn
Photo by liz west.
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Jalopnik Grisly Video Of Fatal Lamborghini Street Racing Crash Reminds Us Not To Street Race | Deads
Jalopnik Grisly Video Of Fatal Lamborghini Street Racing Crash Reminds Us Not To Street Race | Deadspin Michael Jordan’s Ghost Is Retiring, At Fucking Last | Gizmodo A Skeptic’s Guide to Buying (or Not Buying) a 4K TV | Jezebel The Reinvention of Paris Hilton Is Upon Us
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Minibian Is a Minimal Version of Raspbian for the Raspberry Pi
Raspbian is pretty lightweight as far as operating systems go, but if you’re looking for something even simpler for your Raspberry Pi projects, Minibian is worth a look.
The current version of Minibian is based on the most recent Rasbian build (Jessie), and is compatible with all the various versions of the Raspberry Pi. This version differs from Raspbian in a number of ways, but the main takeaway is that Minibian is built more for electronics tinkerers than those interested in making a full-fledged computer. Included here are just the core system and some basic utilities (including NAS, web server, and various electronics applications), and does not include a GUI. This makes it great for embedded projects because you get the support and compatibility of Raspbian without the fluff. The end result is a 450MB operating system that can boot in about 15 seconds and only uses 29MB of RAM. You can put it on an SD card the same way you would with Raspbian.
Minibian (Jessie) 2015-11-12 Is Out! | Minibian
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Swallow Pills More Easily With Special Cups and Techniques
Swallowing pills isn’t always easy: up to 40% of American adults, and plenty of children, have difficulty. Special cups and techniques can help, tricking you into gulping the pill down with your drink.
One of these cups is the Oralflo, which looks like a sippy cup: you fill it with whatever drink you like, then drop your pill into a holder in the spout. Take a drink, and the pill comes along for the ride. If carrying a special cup around isn’t your style, try the Easy Flow Pill Swallowing Aid, which is just a pill holder that pops onto the top of a bottle.
What if you’re stuck without any special equipment? Here are a few other techniques that might work:
- Tilting your head forward: This works for capsules, because they float. Tilt your head forward (chin down) before swallowing. The capsule floats to the back of your mouth.
- The “toilet bowl” technique, an old standard creatively christened by a Lifehacker commenter: fill your mouth with water, then drop the pill in. This works best for pills that sink.
- The pop-bottle technique: place the pill on your tongue, and seal your lips around the mouth of a bottle. Suck in a big swig of the drink.
- Lube it up with butter: Just what it sounds like.
The problem is often mental, the New York Times reports: we just aren’t used to swallowing solid items without chewing them. In that case, pediatrician Tanya Altman suggests training yourself by rolling up a piece of bread into a pill shape. It’s soft, so the anxieties about swallowing a pill often don’t apply. From there, you can try bigger pieces of bread, or work up from small to large pieces of candy.
Can’t Swallow a Pill? There’s Help for That | New York Times
Photo by Carsten Schertzer.
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Brazilian anti-racism group uses billboards to shame Facebook trolls
The group Criola is bringing offensive comments made on Facebook and Twitter from the virtual world into the real world by publishing them on giant billboards in neighborhoods where the commenters live.
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Give The Gift of Bottomless Books With Up To 40% off Kindle Unlimited
Kindle Unlimited is basically Netflix for ebooks and audiobooks, and Amazon’s offering a very rare discount on the service today for Cyber Monday. You’ll save 25% if you lock in a 6-month subscription, 33% for a full year, and 40% for two years. If you love to read, this should pay for itself. [Up to 40% off a Kindle Unlimited Subscription]
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“Walter Mitty type” IT manager jailed over attempted dark-web gun buy
Buying a Luger LC9 9mm gun and 50 rounds of ammunition was part of research to apply for a job at the NCA, he told police.
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A Skeptic's Guide to Buying (or Not Buying) a 4K TV
I bought my beloved television half a decade ago, a (then) impressively thin 32-inch Samsung for around $500. Today, you can buy a 50-inch 4K TV for $500. The real question is: Should you buy a 4K TV at all?
This is the year that 4K TVs aren’t so much an exotic offering from a CES showroom as a sale item you’re sure to trip over on any visit to Best Buy. There are now a ton of 4K TVs on the market, and they’re finally affordable. Even 4K TV content isn’t as impossible to find as it used to be. However, depending on the size of your living room and the demands of your eyeballs, you might get more for your money—and not even notice the visual difference—with a 1080p model.
As I’ve been doing research for a new TV of my own, I’ve picked up a few tips that have made some sense out of the chaos. I’m also going to recommend a few models for different scenarios, including the inevitable situation where you realize that you don’t need a 4K TV and 1080p TVs are wonderfully cheap right now.
Bear with me. We’re in this together.
Don’t Buy It Just Because It’s Cheap
Shopping for a television is a little bit like shopping for a car. It’s expensive, and it sucks. Sales can be very enticing, especially around this time of year! Don’t settle for a shitty TV because it’s dirt cheap, though. You might get a lemon.
Depending on what you pick, a TV can be a relatively large investment. You might be tempted to spend thousands of dollars on some jacked up curved OLED screen bursting at the seams with smart features like friggin’ Android TV. At the end of the day, though, any relatively new LED LCD screen will get you from the beginning to the end of your favorite buddy comedy. Meanwhile, Plasma TVs generally make everything look better but few companies still make them. And OLED TVs do look amazing, but they will remain amazingly expensive for the foreseeable future.
So what the shit does HDR and Ultra HD and “expanding the color gamut” and all of those jargon-y salesperson words really mean? I’m going to be very honest about what to look for in a new TV, namely the ones with that very buzzworthy 4K logo on the box. When you’re trying to pick your new TV out of the sea of nicely priced LED screens on the market today, you should really focus on the basics: resolution, size, and quality.
Resolution Is Overrated
You’ve heard it here before but looking for the highest resolution screen is not the trick to buying the best TV. What you really want is the right resolution for you and your space. You might not actually want a 4K TV, regardless of the sale price!
A television earns its 4K Ultra High Definition designation if the screen is at least 3,840-pixels-wide and 2,160-pixels-high. (4K is also known as 2160p.) That means there are four times as many pixels on the screen as a Full HD 1080p television. None of this matters if you’re going to be sitting more than about 10 feet from the screen, however, since the human eye is literally incapable of distinguishing the difference in resolution from that distance.
So, the extra pixels in a 4K TV only offer better resolution if the screen is large (think 60-inches and up) or if you sit really close to the TV (think: five feet). This makes for a difficult proposition when shopping for a new TV, since many of the cheapest 4K screens are all in the 50-inch range. At that size, it’s kind of a toss up whether the improved resolution will matter. Nevertheless, you should get out a measuring tape and check out this guide and this calculator to find out if you’d even notice the sharper picture in your living room.
The resolution question is not a new one. Back when I bought my 720p TV, I figured out that the lower resolution would look the same from where I was sitting as the more expensive 1080p options. And while 4K content is still relatively rare, it’s worth admitting that it will be the standard before long, and pretty much all new TVs will feature 4K screens.
Picture Quality Is Underrated
We haven’t arrived at the total 4K takeover yet, but we’re getting closer. The market shift is creating a familiar problem, where all the TV companies want you to buy a new 4K TV so they’re phasing out the older 1080p TVs. (This happened with 720p TVs a few years ago.) That means that if you want all of the hot new features and top quality hardware, you might just have to buy a 4K TV anyways.
But set aside your dreams of owning a smart TV for a second, and focus on what’s important. Regardless of how many pixels you squeeze into the screen, picture quality can vary widely based on three factors: backlighting, refresh rate, and contrast ratio.
Backlighting
Let’s start with backlighting. The vast majority of the reasonably priced TVs on the market are LCD TVs that use LEDs for backlighting. They’re generally just known as LED TVs, not to be confused with the much more expensive and awesome OLED TVs. (Plasma TVs don’t need backlights, but they’re also more or less extinct.)
Many lower-priced LED TVs are edge-lit, meaning the LEDs are located on the side of the screen. Others are properly back-lit, giving the TV better local dimming features. Local dimming allows certain clusters of LEDs to light up when the picture is brighter in certain spots. This works differently depending on the type of backlighting. Local dimming on edge-lit TVs is usually limited to columns of light, while back-lit TVs can light up very specific sections of the screen, a setup known as “full-array local dimming.” The number of zones will vary by model, but full-array local dimming is what you want.
Refresh Rate
Now, let’s talk motion. A screen’s refresh rate refers to the number of times the picture updates on the screen per second. This specification is measured in Hertz and will largely determine how the TV deals with motion. Higher refresh rates mean more updates and, presumably, smoother motion.
All TVs must have a refresh rate of at least 60Hz, since that’s what the broadcast standard. However, you’ll see 4K TVs with “effective refresh rates” of 120Hz, 240Hz, or higher. That’s because various manufacturer use computer tricks to cut down on motion blur. These tricks produce the so-called soap opera effect that makes some content be too smooth. So be sure to find the TV’s “actual refresh rate.” (CNET even made a handy guide for the 2015 models.) Realistically speaking, you should look for a TV with an actual refresh rate of 120Hz.
Contrast Ratio
Here’s where the somewhat scientific measurements for screen quality become pseudo-scientific. The term contrast ratio refers to the different between the blackest black and the whitest white on the screen. Since this affects every color in between, the screen’s contrast ratio plays a major role in picture quality. So the very best TVs will produce really dark blacks and super bright whites but—here’s the rub—there’s no real standard for measuring contrast ratio.
This is why you might see your new TV in person before you buy it. While certain factors like full-array local dimming will improve the screen’s contrast ratio, there’s no silver bullet to perfect settings. Definitely don’t trust anything the manufacturer says, and be mindful that the TVs setup at Best Buy might not be calibrated properly. If you’re eager for a very technical explanation of how contrast ratio works, try this video. Otherwise, use your eyes.
Don’t Buy It Just Because It’s 4K
All those semi-confusing words about specifications aside, I need to reiterate my original point. Just because a TV has 4K resolution doesn’t mean it’s a good TV. Resolution is one of many specs, and if you’re sitting about 10-feet away from the TV like a normal person, you might not even notice the difference.
There’s another wrinkle worth considering as well. If you plan on streaming movies and shows to your TV over wifi, you’re going to need a pretty fast wifi connection for 4K content. Netflix, for instance, requires 25Mbps. That kind of speed is pretty standard if you’re hardwired into an ethernet connection, but wifi tends to be slower. Even if your connection is fast enough for 4K streaming, however, the image quality might still be degraded. You can tweak the settings, but you’ll still need to buy or download the Ultra HD file to ensure you’re getting the quality you paid for.
So What Should I Buy?
Let me circle back to my own quest for a new TV for a quick second. I’m considering buying something in the 50-inch range to put in my small living room. The couch is around 10-feet away from where I want to mount the TV, so it’s really a toss up in terms of how much I’d enjoy the benefits of 4K. Nevertheless, I’m planning on moving into a bigger space soon, so that calculus could soon change.
I’ve also figured out that there are a few things I don’t care about. I don’t care about sound. TVs are so slim now, none of them have good speakers. Getting a soundbar or some other setup seems like a must. I don’t care about high dynamic range (HDR) or 3D or OLED or curved screens or Android TV because those features tend to appear on TVs that cost more than I want to spend. Also, smart TV features are sort of silly anyways, since set top boxes are so good and so cheap.
Those qualifications narrow the search nicely. I compiled a list of about 15 models ranging in price from $500 to $1,300. Realistically, I don’t want to spend more than $700. And I’m thinking very seriously of ditching the 4K idea altogether in favor of a cheaper and possibly more feature-rich 1080p. Here are my top three picks.
VIZIO M-Series
Yes, VIZIO. The cheap brand your dad bought you to take to college ten years ago is now making some really terrific TVs, and the M-Series is especially terrific. This 4K screen features full-array local dimming, and VIZIO even reveals that you get 32 dimmable zones. The actual refresh rate is 120Hz for models 60-inches and larger. And the inclusion of basic apps like Netflix are a bonus, though I’ll probably still use a couple set-top boxes thanks to the TV’s luxurious offering of five HDMI ports.
Amazon will sell me a 55-inch M-Series for just $800. It’s $850 plus shipping for non-Prime members. (The 60-inch isn’t worth the extra money to me.) Best Buy has the same 55-inch TV on sale for $700.
LG
There’s something terribly tempting about LG’s cheapest line of 4K TVs. They seem to be on sale everywhere and slightly nicer on the outside. While the price is nice, I’m a little wary of this model. LG is famous for its absurd curved OLED screens, so it seems like they might be banking on the brand and offering a crumby budget edition. The spec sheet for LG’s entry-level 4K TV is impressive enough, though. I just need to spend more time looking at it.
Amazon is selling the 55-inch 4K TV to Prime members for $700. Best Buy is also selling that model for $700.
Samsung 1080p
That’s not a 4K TV! But it is a really good 1080p TV with everything I want for a really great price. The effective refresh rate is 120Hz, though all of Samsung’s 2015 have an actual refresh rate of half the advertised number. It’s properly backlit, has wifi, four HDMI ports, and a nice clean design. Plus I guess I feel kind of loyal to Samsung since I’ve loved my old 720p TV so much.
Amazon Prime price on a 55-inch model is a cool $700, right now, though I might settle for a 50-inch. Best Buy is offering a comparable 4K model for an enticing $800 sale price. I’d want to see them side-by-side before making a decision.
Now Let’s Go Shopping
I’ve seen all of the TVs listed above in person, but I need to see them again before I buy one. In fact, I plan on loitering around these things for a solid hour before I part with the better part of a grand. At the end of the day, this new TV will become one of my most expensive and most used gadgets. I want to do this right.
But do you want to know what I’m really thinking? I’m leaning towards the VIZIO M-Series. The local dimming stuff is really cool, and I like how VIZIO seems more transparent about how its technology works than other manufacturers. Again, I need to spend a little more time staring at screens before I decide to buy one, and you should, too.
GIF by Sam Woolley
Contact the author at adam@gizmodo.com.
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Speed Up an Old Mac By Disabling These Animations
If you have an older Mac, or your newer one’s just running a bit too slowly for your liking, you can disable some of the cosmetic animations to speed it up a bit. Defaults-Write has a solid collection of different Terminal commands that’ll do just that.
Disabling animations makes OS X feel a bit faster, though it also makes it a little less fun to use. Still, if you’re sick of everything being slow, you can dig into the command line to fix things up. These are verified to work in OS X El Capitan, though they should also work in Yosemite. First, head to the command line by opening up Terminal (Applications > Utilities). From there, you can type these commands to disable the animations you want off.
Disable Open/Close Window Animations
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false
Disable Quick Look Animations
defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0
Disable Window Size Adjustment Animations
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001
Disable Dock Animations
defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false
Disable the “Get Info” Animation
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true
With that, you Mac should be a bit more speedy, albeit a little fanciful to watch. Head over to Defaults-Write for a number of other command line changes you can make to speed up the interface, including animations in Mail and Safari.
10 Terminal commands to speed up your Mac in OS X El Capitan | Defaults-Write
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Personal Finance Goals Take Time, So Prepare for the Wait
When I first started getting my finances in order, it was kind of an exciting time. I was excited about kicking my debt to the curb; I was excited about saving for fun stuff like travel. Mostly, I was excited about being in control of my money. But after a while, it got boring.
Once I learned to be diligent about my money and learned to change my habits, there were no more actionable items on my personal finance to-do list. The only thing I could do was wait. Money After Graduation sums up this issue pretty well:
Eventually, after you get your finances under control, you cannot modify your behavior any further to get closer to your financial goals.
You just have to wait for the time to pass.
You can calculate the amount you need for financial independence, or figure out your debt-free date. Then you can automate your savings or debt payments. But after that? You just wait. And wait. And wait. It can take years until those payments translate into the tangible results you want. The waiting game to see the results of good financial habits might be one of the hardest aspects of taking care of your money. Because it’s boring. Because the initial rewards are few and far between. Because every step of the way you’ll wonder if progress is really happening or not.
To put it simply, the novelty of getting your money in order wears off after a while. Your financial journey is not always going to be an exciting one, but if you can keep your eye on the prize, you’ll get past the plateau, and your patience will pay off.
If you want to read more on this topic, head to Money After Graduation’s full post, below.
Financial Goals Take More Than Money, They Take Time | Money After Graduation
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“You Don't Get What You Deserve. You Get What You Negotiate.”
Ideally, we’d all earn what we deserve and our employers would give us raises according to our skill level, experience, and professional value—we’d never even have to ask. Of course, reality doesn’t usually work out that way. As finance expert Farnoosh Torabi puts it: “You don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.”
As difficult as negotiating can be for some of us, it can make a huge difference in your earning potential. Torabi uses her own career as an example:
I live by these words each time I strive to earn and save more. A story I often share is the one about doubling my salary when changing jobs back in 2006. I was up for the senior video correspondent role at TheStreet.com.
At the time, I was earning around $45,000 at my TV news job as a producer and sometimes-on-camera reporter. And, crazy as it sounds, I asked to more than double my salary with the new gig. I asked for $100,000.
My manager offered $85,000 (which would have been an incredible raise!). But I replied, “How about we agree to $90,000 right now and I don’t bother you in six months?” Next thing I heard? “We’ve got a deal. Welcome to TheStreet!”
It’s easy to get upset that your employer isn’t paying you what you believe you deserve, but getting upset doesn’t do much good. Negotiating, on the other hand, can make a difference. Check out the rest of Torabi’s advice at the link below.
I’ve been writing about money for 15 years, and here are the 9 best pieces of financial advice I can give you | Business Insider
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The Best Ways to Get a Bartender's Attention (Without Being a Jerk)
Getting the attention of the bartender at your favorite watering hole can be a daunting task, especially after work or on the busy weekends when everyone’s out for a drink or three. To make it a little easier, we sat down with a couple of bartenders who have been slinging drinks for years to get the best tips. Here’s what they suggested.
Whether you’re setting foot into a new bar, or you’re out with coworkers and friends, getting served can be tricky if you’re competing with dozens of other patrons. We’ll be blunt: There’s nothing you can do to skip the line, nor should you actually want to do that. But there are some things you can do to get prompt service, show your appreciation, and make the bartender more willing to come back when you approach the bar again. If you’re already a regular at your favorite establishment, you’ve already learned the ropes. For the rest of us, here’s what you need to know, straight from two friends of the site: Michael, whom you may know as mfusion, and “Diane,” a bartender who preferred to stay anonymous.
First, What Not to Do
Before we dive into the things you can do to make sure you get good, repeat attention at the bar, let’s talk about a few behaviors you should avoid. Some of them are obvious, like not being an outright jerk, but that subtle sense of entitlement that a lot of people get because they’re the ones opening their wallet and they expect the person behind the counter to be their servant for the evening doesn’t help either. Leave it at the door, take a few deep breaths, and avoid these:
- Keep your hands, money, menu, or anything else out of the air. Both of our bartenders chimed in on this separately. Snapping your fingers, waving your hands (unless you are legit behind a dozen people and can’t be seen unless you do), waving the menu in the air, whistling, yelling, or repeating “EXCUSE ME” when you’re in clear sight of the bar is going to get you ignored. Keep your money on the bar until someone’s there to take it—waving bills in the air like your bartender is a stripper makes you look desperate, not wealthy.
- Don’t wait behind solid objects and expect to be seen. You think this would be clear, but Michael explained too many people stand behind the taps or sit behind a high part of the counter and then get frustrated when they’re not noticed. He reminds us, “I simply can’t see through solid objects.”
- Don’t give the bartender a nickname, and don’t call her “barkeep.” You’re not on a first-name basis with the person pouring your drinks, and they’re not your buddy. Unless they give you their name—and you bet if you’re a good customer they will—don’t presume to call them by something you just made up, or call them “barkeep.” Unless you’re sipping mead at a Renaissance Festival, Michael reminds us, “We hate that word. This is a bar, not an inn.”
- Don’t stand at the waitstaff service station. The service station is, well, for wait staff in the restaurant, or cocktail servers in the bar. They’re designed for people who have punched in orders (or for employees to punch in orders) and to grab drinks and go. Don’t stand there—you’re in literally everyone’s way.
Once you’ve mastered the fine art of not doing any of these (seriously, it’s not difficult) you’re ready to move on. After we were through talking about some of the things you just shouldn’t do, our bartenders explained there are some other behaviors that’ll help you get seen, noticed, and taken care of.
Be Patient (a Little Friendliness Doesn’t Hurt Either)
First of all, be patient, especially if the place is busy. It’s easy to think that the bartender is serving everyone at the bar but you, but odds are they’re already working their way to you, as long as you’re actually at the bar. Michael says:
Really, I’m trying to get to everyone...plus the service station, plus keep an eye on what’s happening on the floor for potential fights or arguments, trying to figure out a way to ask the inappropriate couple dry humping in front of the lavatories to stop, and get way caught up long enough to take a break. We’ve got a lot going on at once!
Oh, and also, I swear that I’m not serving the women first. Maybe the ones you’re watching know something about politely getting attention that you don’t. Really, I’m a professional, I’m trying to get to juggle everyone at once.
Finally, be courteous. Even if you’ve been waiting a while, don’t huff and puff and say “finally, can I get a...” A little courteousness goes a long ways, as does a little understanding. When you finally do get the attention you want, treasure it and make the bartender want to come back to you again later. If you act like a jerk when you finally do get a bartender’s attention, you probably won’t see them again very quickly. On the other hand, Diane explains that a little kindness goes a long way:
I am much likely to pour a stronger drink, or give leftover milkshakes (alcoholic or not), leftover daiquiris, or a basket of free fries to the people that make my shift more enjoyable.
While you shouldn’t expect anything by being a decent human being, good people look out for each other, especially when one of them is having a rough time and the other shows a little kindness and respect in turn.
Stand Where You Can Be Seen (or Where the Bartender Has to Go)
We mentioned above that you should stand where you can be seen—and obviously not on the other side of a solid object. There’s more to that story though, as Michael explains:
Look for the soda gun. That’s where my well is. That’s where I make everything. That’s where I stop moving. That’s a good place to ask my name and then order a drink. If there are multiple bartenders, or you’re at a long bar, try to figure out where their well sections overlap, and stand there. Now you have twice the odds of getting someone’s attention.
If the bar atmosphere comfortable enough for you have your money on the bar in front of you, forearms on the bar, try to make the eye contact casual while being deliberate about it. A slight raise of the hand in the absolute direction while we’re looking at you will get attention. Like in the James Bond movies. (Seriously, Daniel Craig knows what’s up.)
In short, park yourself where your bartender needs to be at some point, and you’ll never be ignored. You’ll also be more likely to get your drink quickly, and, if you’re amicable, strike up a conversation with the bartender that’ll result in a better evening for everyone.
If you’re out on a weekend and the bar is packed, you might have a tougher time here. If you’re standing like two or three people deep from the counter, the bartender can’t get to you, so don’t just stand there waiting. Make an effort to nudge your way in and get a place at the counter. Stand facing the bar, looking at the shelf or the taps. If you’re standing with your back to the bar, chatting with friends, or staring at your phone, the bartender is less likely to approach you because they assume you’re busy—and there’s likely someone else actively looking at them waiting for their attention.
Be Ready When The Bartender Approaches
Okay, so the bartender leans in towards you and asks “What are you drinking?” Now’s your chance, don’t blow it.
Did you look blankly at the shelf, or flip over the drink menu, start to read, and say “uhhhhhh?” You blew it.
Be ready when the bartender approaches you, especially at a busy bar. Spend the time you have waiting to think about what you’re going to order, or peruse the cocktail menu if there is one. When your bartender arrives, the best thing you can do is be ready with your drink, and the drink of your friend, date, colleague, or whomever you’re there with. Holding that drink menu in your hand, or leaving it flipped over on the counter, can also signal to the bartender that you’re ready to go and you know what you want. Michael notes:
This is very important. Know what you want or at least have a relevant question when you do get our attention. Don’t stop us and then look at the menu.
Really, know what you want to drink. If ordering for a group, at least know the first two or three drinks. The indecisive ones better get their butts in gear though, I’ve got a serious cigarette break coming up.
Diane agreed, and pointed out that this extends to parties, and even tables when she has to attend them:
A closed menu will get my attention because then I know that the customer is most likely ready to order. If I have to work tables, stacked or grouped dishes will get my attention, because it is quick and easy to pre-bus a table and do a quick check on the guest. Also if a guest is just having a drink, an empty glass at the end of the table will make me think they want another and to go over and offer.
Oh also, if people send me on multiple trips to get them drinks, fries, or whatever I will get annoyed and avoid them for awhile. Only if they are asking one at a time, or if one person asks for something and I ask if anyone else needs something and they don’t speak up until I have left and returned, though.
Ideally you’re going to the bar because you want a drink, so you probably know what you’re in the mood for. If you’re not sure how to order at a bar, now’s a good time to learn how to drink like an adult, or choose a wine to drink. None of this means you have to walk in knowing what you want already, but you should have at least some idea of what you’d like to sip. Plus, if you’re going to spend time waiting for the bartender, you can at least use it productively.
Tip Well, Especially On the First Drink
Finally, good tips are appreciated, especially in a field where you make the majority of your paycheck on tips. Both of our bartenders echoed this tip—tip well in general, but a decent tip on your first drink says a lot. Michael pointed out that a decent—but not ridiculous—tip on your first drink will remind the bartender where you are, and remind them who you are when you reappear at the bar. Diane went a bit further, and also reminded us that if you tip poorly, no one remembers like a bartender:
We are a money driven society, so obviously when someone leaves me a generous tip I am also going to remember them and be excited to see them again the next time I get to wait on them.
On the other hand, if I give people excellent service and they tip poorly I will remember. Tips are my paycheck, I am not going to waste my time on needy customers who tip poorly when I could be serving others that will actually tip me. If I am not busy I will give them the best service I can, but I focus my attention appropriately.
As for how much you should tip your bartender, well, let’s just say it’s probably more than you think you should tip. Still, most bartenders understand that their customers aren’t industry people, and don’t expect them to drop as much as their colleagues (sometimes 50% per drink) would.
Of course, none of these will make sure the bartender drops everything each time you step up to the bar. If there are a dozen people at the bar, all there before you, try not to be a terrible person: wait your turn, be patient, and be kind. However, keeping these tips in mind will make sure that the bartender will slide over when you need them, you’ll get what you ordered more quickly, and everyone involved— you, the bartender, and that delicious drink in front of you—have a great night.
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Add an Entryway to a Small Room to Make It Feel More Like an Apartment
Whether you’ve moved back in with your parents or you’re renting out a room, living in someone else’s space can make you feel like you don’t have a space of your own. Here’s a simple tip to make your old room feel more like your own apartment: add an entryway.
Consider adding a table or space in your room your keys, wallet and other essentials. The idea is to make your room feel separate from the rest of the house. Apartment Therapy explains:
Give yourself a place to hang up your coat and keys (by the door, or maybe just outside in the hall).
If you are lucky enough to have your own entrance, my all means, dress it up! Add a welcome mat and some plant stands outside. You’d be surprised what a well-dressed side door will do to make your share of the house feel like home.
They offer many more tips below, so be sure to check out their full post.
Living With Your Parents? How To Turn Your Room Into a Mini Apartment | Apartment Therapy
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Stop Trying So Hard to Be Happy
Everything we do in life is, at the end of the day, in pursuit of happiness. But trying too hard to be happy could actually keep you from experiencing real satisfaction.
Too Much Happiness Can Be Bad for You
Happiness—the state of experiencing more positive feelings than negative—feels good, but it’s only one of the many emotions you need to feel as a human. Constant happiness doesn’t allow you to dip into the contemplative thoughts that well up when you’re feeling morose, or allow you to experience the flush of motivational energy you get when you’re angry. Dr. June Gruber explains the costs in an essay published in Perspectives on Psychological Science:
...whereas moderate levels of positive emotions engender more creativity, high levels of positive emotions do not… Furthermore, when experiencing very high degrees of positive emotion, some individuals are inclined to engage in riskier behaviors, such as alcohol consumption, binge eating, and drug use (Cyders & Smith, 2008; L.R. Martin et al., 2002). Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs (2001) noted that individuals with high positive emotion levels may tend to neglect important threats and dangers.
Happiness can turn into a dangerous level of complacency if you don’t strike a balance. Gruber suggests that the association between happiness and beneficial outcomes in your life is nonlinear. That is, more happiness doesn’t necessarily mean a better life. It might sound strange, but there’s a happiness threshold that once crossed can actually make your life worse in one way or another. It’s okay to feel other emotions—to be sad, anxious, or frustrated. It’s actually necessary if you want to avoid trapping yourself in a fishbowl of low motivation, constricted creativity, and risky behavior. Think of your happiness as a muscle: don’t wear yourself out, save your strength for the right time and flex it when it’s best suited for the situation.
Don’t Hunt for Happiness
Like chasing a wild animal, the faster you run toward happiness, the faster it may run from you. A good hunter knows that it’s often better to lie in wait.The more you want happiness the more likely you are to mismanage your expectations and overcompensate by trying to be happy when you’re already doing something that can make you happy. We’ve touched on the science of why pursuing happiness doesn’t always work, but B. Mauss, Ph.D., explains in a study published in the journal Emotion:
At first glance, valuing happiness should lead to positive outcomes, because it is assumed that the more one values happiness the happier one will be… in the case of happiness, this feature of goal pursuit may lead to paradoxical effects, because the outcome of one’s evaluation (i.e., disappointment and discontent) is incompatible with one’s goal (i.e., happiness) (cf. Schooler, Ariely, & Loewenstein, 2003). This reasoning leads to a counterintuitive hypothesis: People who highly value happiness set happiness standards that are difficult to obtain, leading them to feel disappointed about how they feel, paradoxically decreasing their happiness the more they want it.
An example of this paradoxical effect in action is someone who wants straight As. They study for hours and hours and end up severely disappointed when they get one B+. Most people would still consider their grades to be good, but they set such high expectations for themselves that anything short of perfection is bad.
The same thing can happen with your happiness. Even if you’re already doing something you enjoy, focusing too hard on “being happy” will lead to disappointment. The less you try to be happy, the more likely you’ll get it by doing things you like. In a way, happiness is a feather slowly floating down from above. If you reach out to try and catch it, the feather will swirl away. But if you watch it and let it float down into your hand, you can finally grasp it.
Happiness Shouldn’t Mean Achievement
Sometimes the pursuit of happiness can be masked by other things in your life. When you achieve something, it’s hard not to feel happy. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating your wins, of course, but there’s a big difference between celebration and making your achievements the crux of your happiness. When your outlook on life is wrapped up in your personal success, it can backfire in a big way down the line.
Pride-that great feeling you get when you accomplish something—is such a strong source of happiness for most people that it can lead you to believe it’s the only way you can become happy. After all, achievement leads to success and success leads to happiness, right? Gruber suggests, however, that pride actually ends up making you selfish. Too much pride leads to aggressiveness towards others, antisocial behavior, and an increased risk of mood disorders. You might think you’re chasing happiness, but pride and self-achievement can make you care less about the people in your life, and ultimately make you feel lonely. In another psychological study published in Emotion, Iris B. Mauss, Ph.D., explains:
Valuing personal outcomes and focusing on the self might come at the expense of connection with others. For example, people who strive for high self-esteem often fail to attend to others’ needs (Crocker & Park, 2004), and achievement goals can cause people to disregard others’ feelings (Bargh & Barndollar, 1996). Like people who value self-esteem or success, then, people who value happiness might experience decreased social connection and ultimately loneliness.
Furthermore, Mauss notes that using achievement as a marker for happiness can lead to a greater feeling of failure when things don’t work out. You may set loftier goals with each new success until you couldn’t possibly live up to your own standards. Failure can already be tough to stomach, but when your happiness is based on your success rate, one misstep often leads you to question your self-worth.
Christine Carter, Ph.D., at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, suggests that finding a way to enjoy the process of pursuing your achievements is far more important than relishing your accomplishment itself. Psychologists call this a “growth-mindset,” and it’s about focusing on the process instead of the endgame. So, go ahead and celebrate your accomplishments, but remember that real happiness comes from enjoying how you got there.
Let Happiness Come Naturally With the “Little Things”
Worrying yourself over having a happy life only leads to a life full of worrying. Focusing on the big picture is not only daunting, but it’s hardly actionable. Your life is comprised of all the little things we experience every day, and knowing how to find joy in some of those little things is one of the easiest ways to let happiness slowly fill your cup. In order for that to happen, you need to do two very simple things: put yourself in situations where you can experience happiness, and then find a way to savor the experience and let it sink into you.
To put yourself in the position of experiencing happiness everyday, Lahna Catalino, Ph.D., at the University of California, San Francisco, recommends an approach called “prioritizing positivity”:
...deliberately organizing your day-to-day life so that it contains situations that naturally give rise to positive emotions. This way of pursuing happiness involves carving out time in your daily routine to do things that you genuinely love, whether it be writing, gardening, or connecting with loved ones. Prioritizing positivity also involves heavily weighing the positive emotional consequences of major life decisions, like taking a new job, which have implications for the daily situations in which you will regularly find yourself. This way of pursuing happiness means proactively putting yourself in contexts that spontaneously trigger positive emotions.
You may not know what will bring you the most satisfaction in your life (few people actually do), but you’re bound to at least know of a few simple things that regularly make you feel some amounts of happiness. Give yourself time with those little things every day. Once you do that, psychologist Rick Hanson, the author of Buddha’s Brain, explains how to take the small amount of happiness you feel from something little and let it carry over to your overall life satisfaction:
- Let a good fact become a good experience. Often we go through life and some good thing happens—a little thing, like we checked off an item on our To Do list, we survived another day at work, the flowers are blooming, and so forth. Hey, this is an opportunity to feel good. Don’t leave money lying on the table: Recognize that this is an opportunity to let yourself truly feel good.
- Really savor this positive experience. Practice what any school teacher knows: If you want to help people learn something, make it as intense as possible—in this case, as felt in the body as possible—for as long as possible.
- Finally, as you sink into this experience, sense your intent that this experience is sinking into you. Sometimes people do this through visualization, like by perceiving a golden light coming into themselves or a soothing balm inside themselves. You might imagine a jewel going into the treasure chest in your heart—or just know that this experience is sinking into you, becoming a resource you can take with you wherever you go.
It might seem a little cliche to say “stop and smell the roses,” but it’s moments like those that can be stored in your happiness bank and withdrawn later. If you’re enjoying something, let yourself go and get as much as you can from it. Something as simple as finding a way to show gratitude can be a moment you savor and carry with you for a long time to come. In a roundabout way, living a happy life can be as simple as accepting the happiness that’s already around you. If you want more, it’s okay to go out and achieve it, but don’t forget where happiness really comes from.
Illustration by Fruzsina Kuhári.
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This Samsung 4K TV Comes With a Big Discount and $150 in Extras
Here’s a pretty nifty Cyber Monday TV deal, if you didn’t buy one on Black Friday. $600 gets you a 48” Samsung 4K set (its Black Friday price), plus a sound bar, an amplified HDTV antenna, a Belkin surge protector, and a pair of HDMI cables for free.
Those bonuses alone sell for over $150 on Amazon, so if the size is right, this is easily one of the best TV deals we’ve seen this week. [Samsung 48” 4K TV + Extras, $600]
Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more. We want your feedback.
Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker.
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Prepare for Slow Stock Market Growth in 2016
You don’t want to panic when the stock market is in a slump. Remember this going into 2016, because analysts say it’s going to be a slow year.
Last week, investment firm Vanguard sent customers an email warning about a slow 2016, and Business Insider explains why next year will be a modest one:
Based on the forecasts we’ve received so far, even the most bullish strategists expect that 2016 will be a modest year for the market. Uncertainty about how markets respond to the first interest rate hike in nine years, commodity price weakness, and slow global growth are some of the things strategists have identified as potential headwinds for stocks and earnings.
So if your savings aren’t growing very much going into 2016, remember: you should be investing for the long-term. The market corrects itself over time, and years like this are par for the course. However, this is a good time to give your portfolio a checkup and make sure you’re invested in the right percentage of stocks vs. bonds. It may also be a good time to buy, since prices are low.
In general, though, this is just something to keep in mind for the coming months, and Business Insider offers more info at the link below.
Here’s what Wall Street is predicting for the stock market in 2016 | Business Insider
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Telegram Android app is a stalker's dream
Popular instant messaging service Telegram provides optional end-to-end encrypted messaging and, in general, is highly focused on protecting user privacy. Despite these efforts, some security exper...
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Avoid These Holiday Plants If You Have Pets
If you have pets you need to be careful which plants you use to deck the halls in your home. Here are some commonly used plants that can be harmful to your furry companions.
Not all of these plants are toxic to your dogs and cats, but they can still cause rashes or digestive issues if they start gnawing on them. Here are a few:
- Holly: poisonous
- Mistletoe: poisonous
- Poinsettia: rash, indigestion
- Pine sap: mild indigestion
You may want to avoid them entirely, but if you suspect your pet is having a reaction to one of these plants, take them to the vet ASAP to be checked out. Plus, these are just the “holiday” themed plants that can be harmful. For a full list, check out the Humane Society’s chart here.
Which Holiday Plants are Toxic to Dogs? | Modern Dog
Image from medvjek.
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Make Mushroom "Jerky" For an Umami-Packed Snack Anyone Can Enjoy
One doesn’t usually think of jerky as a vegetarian-friendly option, but this mushroom “jerky” from Food 52 is a savory snack that anyone can enjoy. (Except those allergic to mushrooms, obviously.)
Click the link below for the full recipe, but don’t be afraid to deviate from it with your own seasonings. Simply slice four portobello caps into 1/4 inch-thick slices, and roast at 250° F with a tablespoon of olive oil and whatever flavorings you desire until they are slightly browned and chewy. (About an hour and a half or so, flipping halfway through).
Store the “jerky” strips in the fridge and grab them as needed for topping salads and sandwiches, or eat them all on their own for an umami-packed, vegan snack.
Vegan Mushroom “Jerky” (Slow-Roasted Mushroom Strips) | Food 52
Photo by Adrian Scottow.
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Deadspin Nobody In Sports Is Having As Much Fun As The Monmouth Bench | io9 10 Book Series So Addict
Deadspin Nobody In Sports Is Having As Much Fun As The Monmouth Bench | io9 10 Book Series So Addictive, You Never Want Them to End | Kotaku The Biggest Selling Manga Issues of 2015 | Jezebel Informal Poll: Did a 5-Year-Old Really Draw This Picture?
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Hang Jewelry or Other Light Items on a Clothespin Board
A scrap piece of wood, some clothespins, and some glue are all you need to display and quickly access jewelry or other light items.
This simple project idea from Instructables user MotherDaughterProjects pretty much speaks for itself. Glue the clothespins to a piece of wood, let it dry, and then use it to hang jewelry, spare keys, or pretty much any other lightweight item.
And while the project featured here has a pretty rustic look, there’s nothing stopping you from prettying up the clothespins with some paint or wood stain, or just buying some more attractive clothespins to work with.
Clothespin Jewelry Hanger | Instructables
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VPN protocol flaw allows attackers to discover users' true IP address
The team running the Perfect Privacy VPN service has discovered a serious vulnerability that affects all VPN providers that offer port forwarding, and which can be exploited to reveal the real IP addr...
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Revert to the Old Volume Slider in Windows 10
The new volume slider in Windows 10 is pretty, but if you’re hankering for the old look or that handy link to the full Mixer, you can get the old one back with just a bit of Registry hacking.
Editing your Windows registry sounds more complicated than it actually is, but if you’ve never done it before you might want to give this explainer a quick read first. Pay particular attention to the part about backing up the Registry or creating a System Restore point just in case you need them.
That said, our friends at WonderHowTo put together some easy-to-follow instructions on reverting to the old style volume slider in Windows 10. You’ll just need to add one Registry key (a DWORD value named EnableMTCUVC in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/MTCUVC folder) and set the new key’s Value data field to 0. Hit up the full article for instructions and illustrations.
How to Revert to the Old Volume Slider in Windows 10 | WonderHowTo
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Save An Extra 15% on Anything From Amazon's Warehouse
If you have any expensive items on your Amazon wishlist, buying them lightly used from Amazon Warehouse is a great way to save some cash, and today only, you can save an extra 15% on anything you find.
Sitewide discounts are basically unheard of on Amazon, so popular items are likely to sell out fast. I know that buying used or open box items can be a little unnerving, but since they come directly from Amazon, you know you’ll have a great support experience in the event of any issues.
Just use the search function on this page to find Warehouse-specific listings for what you’re looking for, and the 15% discount will be applied automatically at checkout. [15% off Amazon Warehouse Products]
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