Saturday, December 31, 2016
Dips Are a Great Alternative When You’re Tired of Push-Ups
Push-ups, like vanilla flavors, are reliable, but when you want something different but just as good dips are your answer. Dips also work out your chest, shoulders, and triceps, but focus on slightly different parts of those muscles. Combine that with push-ups and you will build awesome chest and “pushing” strength.
Before you try chest dips, make sure you can do a full push-up and have no pain in your shoulders and elbows. Dips can be done with either your body weight or a weight that’s tied around your waist, between two chairs or parallel bars. While holding onto both chairs or bars that are about shoulder width apart, suspend yourself in the air, using your arms, core, and legs to hold your whole body afloat and steady. Then you slowly lower your body by bending your elbows until they’re about 90 degrees and push back up. Once you try them, you’ll probably find them pretty difficult to do at first. You can work up to them by:
- Building the proper range of motion: Keep your legs on the ground and lower yourself to get used to this up-down pushing motion. When you return, hoist yourself back up as fast as you can to practice. Make sure you can comfortably get your elbows to form a 90-degree angle without strain on your shoulder and don’t go any deeper than that.
- Using static holds: Practice just holding yourself up on the bars without swaying for 10, 20, or 30 seconds at a time.
Just generally getting stronger in your upper body and core from other exercises will go a long way toward helping you complete dips. For more tips on setup and bad habits to avoid, check out the full video.
How to Do Dips - Chest & Triceps Exercise | Buff Dudes
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Make a DIY Polarizing Filter From an Old LCD Screen
Polarizing filters can be an essential part of a photography tool set, as they suppress glare, make blue skies pop, and offer an additional way to control the light in your scene. And if you have some old electronics that you can mine for spare parts, you might already have a filter.
It turns out the glass screens on old liquid crystal displays that you can find on something like a calculator or an old Nokia phone have a transparent layer that acts as a polarizing filter. If you disassemble the device (and are careful not to break the screen, of course), you can use it as a rough but ready polarizing filter. Obviously such a small screen won’t work with your DSLR, but you can experiment with your smartphone camera to see how the filter works. (You can also try shooting photos through your sunglasses if you have polarized lenses.)
This tip comes from the Koldunov Brothers, who often find unique ways to use household items in photography. It’s certainly not a professional solution to making a filter but it’s a fun way to repurpose any broken electronics you might have lying around.
Free polarizing filter. Capturing a new camera phone using filter, taken from the old one | Kuldunov Brothers
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Friday, December 30, 2016
Friday Squid Blogging: Will Fish and Chips Become Squid and Chips?
BBC.com reports that squid are proliferating around the North Sea, and speculates that they will become an increasingly common British dinner.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
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Turn an Old DVD Case Into the Perfect LEGO Travel Set
If you have kids that like to play with LEGO toys, here’s an easy way for them to bring their favorite toys on the road. All you need is an empty DVD case.
In this video from the Specific Love Creations YouTube channel, you’ll learn a few clever ways to reuse old DVD cases. For example, you can turn a DVD case into the perfect LEGO travel set for your kids. Just slide in a LEGO baseplate under the clips where you usually find a bunch of special offers, then toss in a few building pieces and some minifigs. When your kids want something to play with in the car, you can hand it back to them. The basebplate makes for a good building surface while traveling, and you’ll be able to keep all the pieces in one place.
7 DVD Case Life Hacks | YouTube
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Build Your Own Old-Fashion Looking Chandelier For About $40
Chandeliers are by no means cheap, but if you’re a fan of a more rustic aesthetic, YouTuber Darbin Orvar put together one using a set of string lights and some wood.
The idea here is to basically build a box for the lights, string them through the wood, then mount it to the ceiling. As for power, you can either connect to a power source in the ceiling, or add an extension cord to connect to a wall outlet. Sure, it’s not exactly an elegant, crystal chandelier designed for castles and fancy houses, but it’s still a clever way to light up a room with about $40 of material.
DIY String Light Chandelier for $40 | YouTube
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Make a Tasty Weed-Infused Honey With Only Three Ingredients
A drizzle of honey in a cup of tea can sweeten up your favorite soothing beverage, but a drizzle of weed-infused honey can really enhance the relaxing nature of the drink.
As with any marijuana edible, check with your doctor before enjoying, and obey the laws and regulations in your area regarding the procurement and use of medical marijuana.
Once you have all of that sorted out, making this honey is a breeze. The video above can walk you through it visually, but you’ll need 3.5 grams of cannabis flower, 1/2 cup of coconut oil, and 11 ounces of your favorite honey. Though the video doesn’t mention anything about decarboxylating the flower, I would do that first, either in the oven (240° F for 60 minutes) or using a sous vide setup. Then, chop up the flower (if you didn’t already during decarb) scrape it into a jar with your coconut oil, and place the jar in boiling water for about two hours. Pour the oil through cheesecloth-lined strainer, squeeze the cloth to get every last bit of liquid out, combine oil and honey in a blender, and blend. Pour it into a honey bear, and enjoy responsibly.
How To Make Weed-Infused Honey: BONG APPÉTIT | Munchies
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How to Tell Exactly The Right Amount of Cologne or Perfume to Put On
You don’t want your fragrance to overwhelm anyone around you, but it can be hard to tell the right amount that’s actually pleasant when you’re the one putting it on. Here’s how to always apply the perfect amount.
First, a simple tip to keep in mind: Your arm’s length away (hold both of your arms out to either side) is your maximum smellable distance. Inside that, people should first be able to notice your cologne or perfume. Beyond that, and you’re probably wearing too much.
You can find out how many spritzes it takes to get to that point by applying one spritz, rubbing it in, and then asking a friend at arm’s distance to see if they can smell your fragrance. If not, add another spritz and try again. Repeat until you reach the perfect number of spritzes. You may need to do this for each different fragrance you wear. If you’re alone and don’t have anyone to give you that sanity check, consider one or two spritzes the maximum.
Finally, instead of bathe in it or spray it all over your body, apply cologne or perfume on your wrists and rub it in, and maybe apply any excess behind your ears. These points allow you and others to enjoy the scent without it being overwhelming or sticking to your clothes rather than your skin.
How to Put on Cologne the Right Way | Business Insider
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The Concourse Young Man Enjoys Phish Concert | Jezebel Becoming Ugly | Gizmodo Aerosmith made more m
The Concourse Young Man Enjoys Phish Concert | Jezebel Becoming Ugly | Gizmodo Aerosmith made more money on Guitar Hero than from any of their albums | Jezebel Trump NY Chair Carl Paladino Told to ‘Resign Immediately’ Following Very Racist Comments About Obama |
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Netflix Has More Fake New Year's Countdowns to Show Your Kids This Year
For a few years now, Netflix has been providing kid-friendly fake New Year’s Eve countdowns so you can put them to bed early and enjoy your adults-only party. They’re back again this year with a bunch of new videos.
To find the countdowns, which can be started at any time, search “Countdowns” on Netflix. Then, a few hours before midnight, you can tell your child that it’s almost time to count down until the new year and pop on one of Netflix’s ten videos. Each video lasts from one to five minutes. Once they’re done, put the kids to bed and enjoy your real party, child-free. The videos feature characters from a variety of kid-friendly shows including the following:
- Chasing Cameron
- Fuller House
- Trollhunters
- Project Mc2
- Skylanders Academy
- All Hail King Julian (From the Madagascar franchise)
- Puffin Rock
- Beat Bugs
- Luna Petunia
- Word Party
While some of these are specifically designed to cross-promote Netflix originals (like Fuller House and Chasing Cameron), parents will likely be able to find at least one or two that their kids recognize. Just make sure you only use these on the really young ones. If your kids are old enough to tell time, the jig is up and you risk your web of lies unraveling before your very eyes.
Netflix New Year’s Eve Countdowns 2017 | Netflix
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Thursday, December 29, 2016
How the Harsh Cold of Winter Can Actually Help You Lose Weight
Feeling so cold you shiver is an awful, horrible experience, but there’s a hidden perk. Shivering can actually burn some calories through the magic of biochemistry.
As this video from the Reactions YouTube channel explains, there are two main types of body fat: white adipocytes and brown adipocytes, or white fat cells and brown fat cells. White fat cells store energy and cushion the body, but brown fat cells are for generating heat and burning calories. The brown ones are the ones you want. And how do you get them? Exercise, of course. Regular exercise increases levels of a hormone called irisin, which can turn white fat cells into brown ones.
But what does this have to do with the bone-chilling cold of winter? Well, shivering in the cold is your body’s way of manually generating muscle heat. Your muscles rapidly contract when you shiver, much like during exercise, stimulating your irisin production. The more you shiver, the more your white fat cells start to act like brown fat cells, generating heat and burning calories. As Reactions notes, shivering for 15 minutes in freezing cold could burn as many calories as one hour of exercise.
That said, this does not mean you should sit in the freezing cold instead of exercising. But if you hate being cold as much as I do, knowing that shivering can keep you on track with your dietary goals might help you warm up to the winter season a bit.
The Cold Truth About Fat | YouTube
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How Bartenders Suggest You Stock Your Home Bar
If you’re stocking a home bar for the first time, or you’re wondering why you never seem to have just the right ingredients to mix good, staple drinks at home, this video will help you out. In it, bartenders from around the globe explain exactly what your home bar needs, from base spirits to mixers.
If you can’t watch (although it’s only two minutes, and well worth it,) the video description at YouTube tells the tale:
Every home bar needs the essentials, but for the most part, they don’t need to be fancy — you just need to cover the basics. We rounded up some of America’s best bartenders, who tell us that you should start with some fundamental base sprits: one great vodka, one great gin, a bottle of rum (preferably one dark, one light), and good whiskey, either a rye or a bourbon. Then you’ll need small bottles of very basic modifiers: campari, triple sec, bitters, sweet and dry vermouth. Also stock soda, tonic, and simple syrup. Have some fresh juice, lemons and limes. You’ll need fresh ice. For a shaker, you could buy a tin or just use a mason jar. Find an implement for mixing, jiggers for measuring, a julep strainer, a hawthorne strainer, and a muddler.
Top it off with some glassware and a cocktail book, and you have yourself a respectable home bar.
Some of the other good tidbits of advice in the video is to not skimp on the quality of your spirits—you want something you’re not afraid to mix, but also don’t mind tasting straight. We’ve shown you some of those same essentials before, as well as some of that glassware they mention if you need further reading on the topic.
What You Need for Your Home Bar, According to Bartenders | Indulgence (YouTube)
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Make Rich, Roasted Vegetable Soups Without a Pot
Making soup without a pot may seem like an impossible task, but Helen Rennie has devised a way to make rich, roasted vegetable soups using only a sheet pan and a blender.
Helen can show you how to make her delicious butternut squash soup in the video above, but this method can be applied to a whole variety of ingredients. Just grab a nice, starchy squash or other vegetable (like acorn squash or sweet potato) and a pear or apple. Peel and slice the vegetable and fruit, place it on sheet pan, and drizzle on a quarter cup of olive oil. Sprinkle everything with salt, and toss it with your hands to coat. Arrange the pan so the fruit is in the center, and roast at 400℉ for 25 minutes. Give everything a flip, and add some alliums (Helen uses shallots) and sage to the pan, and pop it back in the oven for another 15 or 20 minutes.
Once the squash or sweet potato is nice and soft, let everything cool slightly and then transfer to the blender. Deglaze the pan with some boiling water, scrape up all of those tasty brown bits, and add the pan juices to the blender. Add enough warm water to the blender to cover its delicious contents, throw in half a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, and season with salt, nutmeg, maple, or whatever other seasonings you desire. Top with a quarter cup of heavy cream, and blend (starting on low) until everything is silky smooth. Pour into bowls, top with your favorite garnish—Helen can show you how to make a fantastic one in the video above—and enjoy.
Butternut Squash and Pear Soup without a Pot | Helen Rennie
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Why Being Warm Is Better Than Just Being Polite
Part of making real, meaningful connections with others is making them feel welcome, which includes being polite. But, the real key is being warm, which goes beyond just giving people what they need, or treating them with basic respect. Here’s what we mean.
Politeness is important, make no mistake, but it can sometimes create distance rather than draw you closer to those around you. Being both polite and warm makes for authentic interactions that strengthen your relationships. In the video above, The School of Life explains a few ways to exude warmth.
- Pay attention to people’s small needs. Look for little ways to help others, like offering a pillow or cozy blanket to make someone more comfortable when sitting on your couch.
- Relate when someone does something embarrassing. If a friend lets a fart slip or spills their drink, make them feel at ease. For example, you could say, “Don’t worry about it, I’m usually the one making a mess.”
- Be vulnerable and show your personality. Share a part of yourself by giving a homemade gift or card, or putting your favorite playlist on and inviting others to dance.
Open yourself up to others to come across as genuine. You have to do it with intention at first, but after a while, your warmth will be second nature.
How to Be Warm | The School of Life (YouTube)
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The Benefits You Really Get When You Buy 4K HDR Blu-Rays
4K TVs are becoming cheap and ubiquitous enough for everyone to buy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start watching 4K Blu-rays. This video shows the benefit you really get from those.
Streaming movies and TV shows has become so common place that it’s replaced much of the disc-buying market. If you want to take advantage of a new 4K TV, you can either pay Netflix two extra dollars and open the app that’s already on your phone, or shell out hundreds on a 4K Blu-Ray player and all the discs and HDMI cables you need to upgrade the whole system. It’s a pretty expensive upgrade.
The video above from Linus Tech Tips shows you what you get for your trouble. The short version is you’re really getting great HDR. 4K resolution itself has some minor benefits, but HDR is the future of television. It provides substantially better colors than what your TV provides right now and, as the video shows, it’s even better than you can squeeze out of your TV by tweaking color settings.
However, those benefits only really exist for some movies. First, you have to actually have a 4K HDR Blu-ray of the movie you want to watch, and discs still aren’t as commonplace as streaming 4K movies. Then, those movies have to be calibrated well. Linus Tech Tips found that some movies, like The Revenant, weren’t a huge improvement over their Blu-ray counterpart in that department.
The big takeaway here is that if you’re a home theater nut that wants to squeeze the very best video quality you can out of your system, 4K HDR Blu-rays is superior to streaming. However, most of us can wait to upgrade the parts of our system over time, rather than plunging a ton of money into the hardware right now while the market is still adapting.
4K HDR Blu Ray - Is it worth it? | Linus Tech Tips
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Effects of the 2011 DigiNotar Attack
Nice article on the 2011 DigiNotar attack and how it changed security practices in the CA industry.
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SaveMyTime Uses Your Phone Addiction to Track How You Spend Your Time
Android: If you’re one of the millions of people who pick up their phone every few minutes, SaveMyTime wants to hijack that habit. It replaces your lock screen to ask how you’ve spent your time since the last time you used your phone.
There are a lot of time tracking apps out there, but most of them are limited to what you do on the computer or on your phone. Some can track when you move, but not what you’re really doing. The only real way to track that is to ask. SaveMyTime, on the other hand, actually asks what you’re doing in the most convenient spot possible: your phone’s lock screen.
When you turn your phone on, it gives you a selection of activities like working, studying, sleeping, or a few others. Tap the activity you’ve been doing since you last checked your phone and it will add that time to your tracker. You can also customize the names of your activities, if you don’t spend a lot of time studying or running, for example. It’s a simple mechanic that might just help you use an existing habit to create new ones.
SaveMyTime | Google Play Store
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Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Why Nothing Sticks to Teflon Pans and Cookware
If you own non-stick cookware, it’s probably coated with Teflon, which, as you probably know already, is the material that makes it hard for food to stick. What you might not know is why it works so well.
Teflon, also known as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), is a polymer with a carbon chain in the center and two fluorines that wrap around the outside. The carbon and fluorine have a strong bond that leads them to primarily stick to each other rather than other substances PTFE comes in contact with. It doesn’t react with most other chemicals and has a low friction coefficient, which makes it ideal as a non-stick coating on cookware and other equipment.
PTFE is typically applied by roughing the equipment’s surface with a sand or chemical blast, applying a primer, spraying on the PTFE and then heating it so everything solidifies. Once it’s solid, it makes a smooth cooking surface that conducts heat, and is slick enough to resist sticking. For more on why it works so well as a cooking surface, check out the video above.
Why Doesn’t Anything Stick to Teflon? | TED-Ed (YouTube)
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The Cars People Regret Buying Most, According to Consumer Reports
Buying a new car is always exciting at first, but it can take a little while before you realize your ride is more lemon than luxury. Consumer Reports surveyed owners of recently-purchased cars to see which models caused the most buyer’s remorse.
After reaching out to over 300,000 new car owners, Consumer Reports ended up with a list of seven cars you might want to reconsider before you drive them off the lot. In the video above, autos editor Mike Monticello goes over each one, in seven different categories:
- Small Cars: Dodge Dart. Owners cited sluggish acceleration and weak A/C.
- Midsized Sedans: Chrysler 200. Owners said that it’s difficult to get in and out of, and has a rear seat that’s too small.
- Small SUVs: Jeep Compass. Owners cited feeble acceleration and disappointing fuel mileage.
- Midsized SUVs: Nissan Pathfinder. Owners mentioned too many unscheduled dealer trips, uncomfortable seats, and low fuel mileage as common issues.
- Minivans: Dodge Grand Caravan. Owners cited rough shifting, uncomfortable seats, and a cheap-looking interior.
- Pickups: Nissan Frontier. Owners complained about too much road noise and clumsy steering.
- Worst overall: Acura ILX. Less than half surveyed said they’d buy the car again, mentioning a general lack of quality, pokey acceleration, abundant road noise, and a rough ride as issues.
Remember, a good price doesn’t mean a good deal. Always do plenty of research before you decide to put money down on a car.
Buyer’s Remorse: 7 Cars Owners Regret | YouTube
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Your Neglected Christmas Tree Is a Huge Fire Hazard
If you haven’t watered your Christmas tree since you forgot about it on the 26th, now is the time to get it out of your house. Unwatered Christmas trees are a huge fire hazard, as this video from the National Fire Protection Association clearly shows.
Fires that start with a Christmas tree are also deadlier than the average house fire, according to a report by the same group. If you like keeping your tree around, though, keep it watered from the start. The second tree in the video was re-cut immediately before being put into its tree stand, and was watered routinely. It can still catch fire, but it’s a slow burn rather than an instant conflagration.
Christmas Tree Fires Can Turn Devastating and Deadly Within Seconds | National Fire Protection Association
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Deadspin Some Things We Noticed About Phil Jackson’s Engagement-Ending Tweet | Jezebel Angelina Joli
Deadspin Some Things We Noticed About Phil Jackson’s Engagement-Ending Tweet | Jezebel Angelina Jolie Was ‘Furious’ That Brad Pitt Got to Spend Time With Their Kids on Christmas | Gizmodo After a Year of Recalls, Soylent Marches Forward With Two New Flavors | Deadspin Samir Nasri Tweets, Deletes Claims Of “Full Sexual Service” From L.A. IV Treatment Center |
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The Five Second Rule Only Works Because Your Kitchen Floor Is Relatively Clean
The five-second rule—the idea that you can safely eat fallen food if you pick it up within five seconds—is as controversial as it is popular. While technically it’s not really true, it works because your kitchen floor is pretty clean.
As the video above explains, the five-second rule is technically untrue. More specifically, there isn’t really a set period of time in which foods can’t pick up bacteria. Sitting on the floor for one second is as bad as sitting on the floor for five.
However, you’ve likely picked up food off the floor within five seconds and been fine. What gives? Well, as the video goes on to explain, your kitchen floor is likely one of the cleaner surfaces in your kitchen. You can eat food off it because you clean it. A study by the International Journal of Environmental Health Research found that surfaces like the refrigerator handle and even the kitchen counter contained more bacteria colonies per square inch than the kitchen floor.
You also touch a lot of objects that are way dirtier than your kitchen floor every day. Your phone, wallet, purse, and money all get washed less often and touched more frequently than your kitchen floor. They have a much higher potential for carrying bacteria, yet no one thinks twice about grabbing their smartphone in the middle of a meal. Well, at least not for health reasons.
Of course, this depends a lot on how much you clean your floor and what kinds of foods you drop. However, if you clean your kitchen floor, but don’t clean the things you touch often like faucet or door handles, then you’re not putting yourself at extra risk just by eating food that was on the floor for a couple seconds. So, don’t worry. You can still eat food you dropped. Just make sure that you’re cleaning your floor (and all the other surfaces in your kitchen) once in a while.
The 5 Second Rule: It’s Still Not a Thing. | Healthcare Triage
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Weekly review – the hot 28 stories of the past week
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How Signal Is Evading Censorship
Signal, the encrypted messaging app I prefer, is being blocked in both Egypt and the UAE. Recently, the Signal team developed a workaround: domain fronting.
Signal's new anti-censorship feature uses a trick called "domain fronting," Marlinspike explains. A country like Egypt, with only a few small internet service providers tightly controlled by the government, can block any direct request to a service on its blacklist. But clever services can circumvent that censorship by hiding their traffic inside of encrypted connections to a major internet service, like the content delivery networks (CDNs) that host content closer to users to speed up their online experience -- or in Signal's case, Google's App Engine platform, designed to host apps on Google's servers.
"Now when people in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates send a Signal message, it'll look identical to something like a Google search," Marlinspike says. "The idea is that using Signal will look like using Google; if you want to block Signal you'll have to block Google."
The trick works because Google's App Engine allows developers to redirect traffic from Google.com to their own domain. Google's use of TLS encryption means that contents of the traffic, including that redirect request, are hidden, and the internet service provider can see only that someone has connected to Google.com. That essentially turns Google into a proxy for Signal, bouncing its traffic and fooling the censors.
This isn't a new trick (Tor uses it too, for example), but it does work.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2016
What to Look for and Avoid When Selecting Oysters
Oysters make for a delectable treat no matter how you prepare them, but only if you get a good batch. Here’s what you need to know to pick out the best ones.
In this video from the ChefSteps YouTube channel, Marco Pinchot of Taylor Shellfish shares some tips for finding the best oysters anywhere. Oyster shapes and sizes can vary based on the species, how they grow, and where they grow, but the ones that are good for eating all have the same things in common. Here’s what you need to look for:
- A flat top.
- A deep cup, or curved bottom half. The deeper the cup, the more room for meat and brine (the salty liquid.)
- A sealed edge along the oyster to tell you the brine is still inside.
Here’s what you should avoid:
- Open shells. The brine is probably gone and the meat will be dry.
- Oysters that sound hollow. Give them a tap and listen.
Once an oyster is shucked, the meat should fill the shell, it should feel firm, and there should be lots of brine. If the meat looks dry, toss it out. To store oysters before you’ve shucked them, place them in a bowl cup-side down, then cover the bowl with a cold, moist towel.
How to Pick the Best Oysters, With Marco Pinchot of Taylor Shellfish | YouTube
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This Nacho-Stacking Method Ensures Every Bite Is Just as Delicious as the First
Nachos are one of the world’s most perfect foods, but some attention must be paid to format. To ensure every single bite is just as cheesy and delicious as the first, you have to know how to stack them.
The above video is actually packed with tons of fantastic nacho-crafting tips from Clifford Endo (aka “Foodinese”), but the stacking breakdown starts about three and half minutes in. You should definitely supplement these written instructions with the visual, but the sequence is this:
- Get a platter, and smear a healthy layer of refried beans all over it.
- Next, layer on some gooey, cheesy queso.
- Now come the chips. Grab some thick, hearty tortilla chips and stick them vertically in your currently two-layer dip, with all of them kind of leaning against each other.
- Top chips with carnitas (or other meat), black beans, and a “heaping cup” of Monterey jack.
- Then, you can either pop it all under the broiled until the Monterey jack gets all nice and melty, or you can take a torch to it. (I would torch it.)
- You may think you’re done, but you’re not. You’ll want to throw on another layer of chips (horizontally this time), more meat, more black beans, and some Oaxacan cheese. Broil or torch that, top with pickled jalapenos, pico de gallo, cilantro, green scallion, and crema.
This may seem a little elaborate, but if you’ve ever been confronted with the sad, cheese-less chips that reside at the bottom of a nacho pile, I think you’ll agree that it’s worth it. I mean, working one’s way through layers of beans, meat, and cheese, only to be greeted by refried beans and queso, sounds like the ultimate edible surprise. But that’s just my opinion.
You’ve Been Stacking Your Nachos All Wrong | Eater
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The Concourse Carrie Fisher Really Wanted You To Know She Hated The Metal Bikini | Jezebel Woman Who
The Concourse Carrie Fisher Really Wanted You To Know She Hated The Metal Bikini | Jezebel Woman Who Called Michelle Obama ‘Ape In Heels’ Fired for Real This Time | Gizmodo So About That Physics-Defying NASA Thruster That Supposedly Works | Jezebel Carrie Fisher, a Princess and a Heroine, Has Died |
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Kitty Litter Gives Your Car Traction on Snowy, Icy Roads
One of the many perils of winter is that, inevitably, your car tires have trouble getting any traction on the slick ice and end up stuck. We’ve shared a few ways to get you unstuck, but there’s yet another method: kitty litter.
Somehow we missed covering this tip when we previously wrote about how kitty litter-filled socks can prevent car windows from fogging up. Throw kitty litter down in the areas where your car tires are struggling (this depends on whether your vehicle is front or rear-wheel drive). The moisture-absorbing ability of kitty litter helps it expand, adding more friction for your tires to catch some grip and get out.
Chemistry Life Hacks for Winter Survival (CLH Vol 5) | Reactions
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This Easy, DIY Magnet Frame Won’t Damage Your Posters
Frames can be expensive, especially for large posters or art, but some DIY options either take a long time and lots of materials or don’t look great. Make this magnet frame for a simple, good-looking frame that lets your posters shine, and is easy to swap art in and out of.
Besides being easy to make, this frame uses magnets to hold your art in place so it doesn’t damage your posters, and when you’re tired of one look, you can swap out the poster quickly. You need a drill with a half inch Forstner bit, four 1 and ¾ inch wooden strips the width of your art, 12 half inch magnets, two screw eyes, E6000 adhesive or other strong glue.
Drill three holes in each piece of wood and glue a magnet in each. Make sure you use opposite charged magnets on each piece of wood for the top and bottom so that they stick when brought together. Add the screw eyes to the end of one of the top pieces of wood. Place your poster between the bottom and top pieces and hang by tying a piece of string to the screw eyes.
Holiday How-to: Magnet Wall Hanger | Apartment Therapy (YouTube)
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Deadspin NBA Admits That Refs Blew Two Calls In Favor Of Cavs; Warriors Remain Chump-Ass Chokers | J
Deadspin NBA Admits That Refs Blew Two Calls In Favor Of Cavs; Warriors Remain Chump-Ass Chokers | Jezebel There Is No Such Thing as “White Genocide” | Gizmodo Senior Facebook Employee Arrested For Allegedly Soliciting Unprotected Sex From Underage Girl | Jezebel When Can I Say I’ll Be Alone Forever? |
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The Feynman Technique Helps You Study Faster and Retain More Information
You can read something and hope that it’ll all be beamed into your brain for future application. Or you can read it and write down what you just learned, as if you were teaching someone else, and actually retain it. This is called the Feynman Technique.
In other words, implement a more “active” way of learning, which obviously takes a lot more work than it sounds. Ideally, when you write down your learnings, you’d also repeat what you wrote aloud, like a teacher instructing a class. With this method, you discover all the areas that need improvement and can go back to focus on those weak points. Repeat this until you can explain the topic or idea in full and simple details. “Once you can explain an idea in simple language, you have deeply understood it, and will remember it for a long time,” the video explains.
We’re aware this isn’t earth-shatteringly novel or exactly news, but it’s simply a good reminder that you are truly knowledgeable about a subject when you can teach something to someone else and have them understand it.
The Feynman Technique | Sprouts
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Earny Offers Automatic Price Drop Refunds for Citibank and Chase Cardholders
Web/iOS/Android: Amazon recently changed its price drop policy, making those awesome automatic price drop apps a little less useful. One such app, Earny, found a way around this, though. They’ve launched a feature that will automate price drop refunds through credit card issuers instead.
For now, at least, the feature only works with Citibank and Chase cards. If you purchase anything with those cards and the item drops in price Earny will automatically file a claim to ask for a refund. To use the tool, you have to link your email, credit cards, and Amazon account. They only have access to your email to look for receipts and they don’t store your credentials. Their privacy policy doesn’t detail much else about how they handle security, but in an email, founder Oded Vakrat told us:
We use an oauth2 authentication for these providers so that we only have access to a token provided by Google or Microsoft. If you use a different email provider, your credentials are encrypted through AES-256. Our cryptographic keys are stored in a high-level security vault, with a FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated HSMs (hardware security module) encryption and validation.
Vakrat adds that they use the same method with credit cards.
If the tool is successful at refunding your price drop, you’ll get an email and the refund should appear on your credit card statement. To try it out for yourself, head to the link below.
Earny | Apple Store
Earny | Google Play
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Security Risks of TSA PreCheck
Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley wrote an op-ed pointing out the security vulnerabilities in the TSA's PreCheck program:
The first vulnerability in the system is its enrollment process, which seeks to verify an applicant's identity. We know verification is a challenge: A 2011 Government Accountability Office report on TSA's system for checking airport workers' identities concluded that it was "not designed to provide reasonable assurance that only qualified applicants" got approved. It's not a stretch to believe a reasonably competent terrorist could construct an identity that would pass PreCheck's front end.
The other step in PreCheck's "intelligence-driven, risk-based security strategy" is absurd on its face: The absence of negative information about a person doesn't mean he or she is trustworthy. News reports are filled with stories of people who seemed to be perfectly normal right up to the moment they committed a heinous act. There is no screening algorithm and no database check that can accurately predict human behavior -- especially on the scale of millions. It is axiomatic that terrorist organizations recruit operatives who have clean backgrounds and interview well.
None of this is news.
Back in 2004, I wrote:
Imagine you're a terrorist plotter with half a dozen potential terrorists at your disposal. They all apply for a card, and three get one. Guess which are going on the mission? And they'll buy round-trip tickets with credit cards and have a "normal" amount of luggage with them.
What the Trusted Traveler program does is create two different access paths into the airport: high security and low security. The intent is that only good guys will take the low-security path, and the bad guys will be forced to take the high-security path, but it rarely works out that way. You have to assume that the bad guys will find a way to take the low-security path.
The Trusted Traveler program is based on the dangerous myth that terrorists match a particular profile and that we can somehow pick terrorists out of a crowd if we only can identify everyone. That's simply not true. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were unknown and not on any watch list. Timothy McVeigh was an upstanding US citizen before he blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel are normal, nondescript people. Intelligence reports indicate that Al Qaeda is recruiting non-Arab terrorists for US operations.
I wrote much the same thing in 2007:
Background checks are based on the dangerous myth that we can somehow pick terrorists out of a crowd if we could identify everyone. Unfortunately, there isn't any terrorist profile that prescreening can uncover. Timothy McVeigh could probably have gotten one of these cards. So could have Eric Rudolph, the pipe bomber at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. There isn't even a good list of known terrorists to check people against; the government list used by the airlines has been the butt of jokes for years.
And have we forgotten how prevalent identity theft is these days? If you think having a criminal impersonating you to your bank is bad, wait until they start impersonating you to the Transportation Security Administration.
The truth is that whenever you create two paths through security -- a high-security path and a low-security path -- you have to assume that the bad guys will find a way to exploit the low-security path. It may be counterintuitive, but we are all safer if the people chosen for more thorough screening are truly random and not based on an error-filled database or a cursory background check.
In a companion blog post, Hawley has more details about why the program doesn't work:
In the sense that PreCheck bars people who were identified by intelligence or law enforcement agencies as possible terrorists, then it was intelligence-driven. But using that standard for PreCheck is ridiculous since those people already get extra screening or are on the No-Fly list. The movie Patriots Day, out now, reminds us of the tragic and preventable Boston Marathon bombing. The FBI sent agents to talk to the Tsarnaev brothers and investigate them as possible terror suspects. And cleared them. Even they did not meet the "intelligence-driven" definition used in PreCheck.
The other problem with "intelligence-driven" in the PreCheck context is that intelligence actually tells us the opposite; specifically that terrorists pick clean operatives. If TSA uses current intelligence to evaluate risk, it would not be out enrolling everybody they can into pre-9/11 security for everybody not flagged by the security services.
Hawley and I may agree on the problem, but we have completely opposite solutions. The op-ed was too short to include details, but they're in a companion blog post. Basically, he wants to screen PreCheck passengers more:
In the interests of space, I left out details of what I would suggest as short-and medium-term solutions. Here are a few ideas:
- Immediately scrub the PreCheck enrollees for false identities. That can probably be accomplished best and most quickly by getting permission from members, and then using, commercial data. If the results show that PreCheck has already been penetrated, the program should be suspended.
- Deploy K-9 teams at PreCheck lanes.
- Use Behaviorally trained officers to interact with and check the credentials of PreCheck passengers.
- Use Explosives Trace Detection cotton swabs on PreCheck passengers at a much higher rate. Same with removing shoes.
- Turn on the body scanners and keep them fully utilized.
- Allow liquids to stay in the carry-on since TSA scanners can detect threat liquids.
- Work with the airlines to keep the PreCheck experience positive.
- Work with airports to place PreCheck lanes away from regular checkpoints so as not to diminish lane capacity for non-PreCheck passengers. Rental Car check-in areas could be one alternative. Also, downtown check-in and screening (with secure transport to the airport) is a possibility.
These solutions completely ignore the data from the real-world experiment PreCheck has been. Hawley writes that PreCheck tells us that "terrorists pick clean operatives." That's exactly wrong. PreCheck tells us that, basically, there are no terrorists. If 1) it's an easier way through airport security that terrorists will invariably use, and 2) there have been no instances of terrorists using it in the 10+ years it and its predecessors have been in operation, then the inescapable conclusion is that the threat is minimal. Instead of screening PreCheck passengers more, we should screen everybody else less. This is me in 2012: "I think the PreCheck level of airport screening is what everyone should get, and that the no-fly list and the photo ID check add nothing to security."
I agree with Hawley that we need to overhaul airport security. Me in 2010: "Airport security is the last line of defense, and it's not a very good one." We need to recognize that the actual risk is much lower than we fear, and ratchet airport security down accordingly. And then we need to continue to invest in investigation and intelligence: security measures that work regardless of the tactic or target.
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Monday, December 26, 2016
The Proper Dining Etiquette for Enjoying a Bowl of Ramen
Ramen is one of the best meals for warming up in cold weather, but it can be an intimidating dish if you’ve who’ve only tried the dried stuff in a packet. These tips will get you slurping up noodles like a pro.
In this video from the ZAGAT YouTube channel, Shigeto Kamada, owner of the Kambi Ramen House in New York City, demonstrates proper ramen etiquette. Here’s what you need to know:
- Start by sampling the broth. It’s perfectly acceptable to drink a little directly from the bowl.
- Slurp your ramen noodles as you eat them—and make some noise. This allows you to taste the noodles and the broth at the same time, as well as aerates the noodles and broth so the flavors can fully develop. Also, it cools off the noodles a bit as they make their way from the steaming broth to your mouth.
- Eat the egg separately from the noodles and broth. It’s basically a side dish floating around in your soup.
- Slurp up the veggies with the noodles and broth. Eat the meat on its own with your chopsticks.
- Eat it fast! Ramen is meant to be a quick meal enjoyed while it’s still piping hot. If you eat too slowly, the broth will evaporate some and the rest will get absorbed by the noodles.
And don’t worry about making all kinds of sounds while you eat. The louder your slurps the better.
How to Eat Ramen - Stop Eating it Wrong, Episode 44 | YouTube
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Build Your Own New Year's Eve Countdown Clock With an Arduino
If you really want to spice up a New Year’s Eve party, you don’t want to rely on some boring old TV announcer or phone to tell you the time. Over on Soldering Station, they show you how to build your own countdown clock.
In order to build this, you’ll need an Arduino, a switch, a display, some housing, and a few other parts. The whole thing’s then packed inside a cereal box assembly, soldered together, and queued up for the countdown. Is it overkill? Most certainly, but it’s fun nonetheless.
New Year’s Eve Countdown Clock | The Soldering Station
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Why Understanding Food Serving Sizes Is Important for Weight Loss
If you want to lose weight, you need to get better at knowing how many calories you eat. With some foods, like peanut butter or ice cream, that’s actually really hard to do. Here’s why it’s important to be a little more accurate than “Eh, that looks like one serving” if you want to lose weight.
As I demonstrate in the video, a bagel, two tablespoons of peanut butter, or any other serving size is hard to imagine if you don’t know exactly what it looks like. Test it out: make a peanut butter and whatever sandwich, using only one serving of peanut butter (that’s two tablespoons, or 32 grams). Go ahead and use a measuring spoon, which is still prone to a lot of error. Now weigh out your portion in grams. What did you get?
If you’ve never paid attention to this stuff before, it could very well be twice the serving size, or twice the calories! If you’re off by even 10 grams, that’s still extra calories you never accounted for. Clearly, it’s easy to overdo it on your favorite foods without even realizing it. If you nailed the perfect serving size, congrats!
Tracking and weighing foods aren’t for everyone and a lot of work, but they’re a powerful process for weight loss. Note that calorie information can have up to a 25% margin of error and you’ll never be truly accurate (which is okay). Be careful not to be obsessed with weighing and tracking every leaf of lettuce, cereal flake, and anything else you eat. That’s overkill. Just do it for a couple of weeks with your most commonly eaten foods to get a sense of what appropriate serving sizes should look like.
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Sunday, December 25, 2016
An Empty Box Is the Best Gift You Can Give Your Cat
Before you toss out that empty cardboard box, think about giving it to your feline friend. They’ll love it.
It’s no secret cats love boxes. We’ve mentioned about some of the reasons why they like them before: they take comfort in small spaces because it makes them feel secure, and small spaces help them retain body heat. But as Abigail Tucker, author of The Lion In the Living Room, explains in the Tech Insider video above, boxes also help them keep active. House cats are basically apex predators that have been confined to a small environment, and, well, they get bored. Boxes activate their basic ambush hunting instincts, so they pop in and out of them like they’re leaping from grass for the kill. So if you forgot to get your cat something, just hold on to one of those boxes so they can play.
Why cats love boxes so much | YouTube
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Ask Google Home For Musical Notes to Help You Get In Tune
Google Home brings most of Google’s awesome voice commands to your living room, but it also has a couple tricks of its own. For example, you can use it to play musical notes so you can get in tune.
As highlighted by Android Police, Google Home can respond to a few musical commands. Ask it “play an E flat” and it will play six octaves of the note you request. If the note isn’t flat or sharp, you may have to add the word “note” to the end, as in “play a B note.” The site also points out that this may work on Google Assistant on the Pixel, but it’s a little finicky and might not always work correctly.
This feature is a little handy, but it’s not perfect. Sometimes it misinterprets the command and starts playing music. It also can’t play scales, or anything more complex than a single note. Still, it’s a handy little trick to have around for the musician in your family.
Feeling flat, musicians? Google Home can play you a key - just ask it
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Saturday, December 24, 2016
How the World's Best Bar Makes the Perfect Irish Coffee
When you’re relaxing at home, there’s nothing quite like an Irish coffee to get your day started. Here’s how the recently-awarded best bar in the world makes theirs.
The Dead Rabbit in New York City recently won the “World’s Best Bar” award from Drinks International, and have won “Best Bar In North America” for four years straight, so they know a thing or two about mixing up good drinks. In this video from the Travel + Leisure YouTube channel, Jillian Vose, the beverage director and bar manager of The Dead Rabbit, shows you how to mix up the best Irish coffee of your life.
Start by filling a six-ounce glass with an ounce and a 1/4 of blended Irish whiskey. Next—and this is key—blend some sugar with your hot coffee before you pour it into your glass with the whiskey in it. Then whip some cold, unsweetened cream (30% to 35% fat content) with a protein shaker bottle, and use it to top off your coffee. Now kick back and enjoy.
The Perfect Cocktail: The Dead Rabbit’s Irish Coffee | YouTube
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Why Subscription Models Can Help Combat Fake News and Clickbait
As fake news stories and misleading information thrives on the internet, we’re left wondering how to combat the flood of garbage. There’s one possible answer, but we’re hesitant to embrace it: subscriptions.
The above video from the edu-tainment YouTube channel the Film Theorists explains how the current trends of fake news and clickbait have their roots as far back as the 1800s. Back then it was called “yellow journalism” and it often involved kids on street corners shouting garbage headlines at you. At least this modern version is slightly quieter (except for annoying auto-playing video ads).
As the video explains, newspapers were rewarded for more sensational headlines. It didn’t matter if they weren’t true, because they still sold a paper. Much like today, where sites still get your clicks and ad impressions, even if you think an article is completely worthless. The economics of news distribution—both then and now—favors getting people to engage the first time more than it favors accuracy.
In the newspapers’ heyday, the solution to this was subscriptions. Subscribers would pay to get newspapers delivered to their door every day. If they didn’t like the stories they got—for example, if they were poorly researched or inaccurate—they would stop subscribing. Thus, taking the time to fact check and get a story right was more beneficial to the success of the company than making outrageous or completely made-up claims.
Ironically, subscriptions still have a hard economic time because, well, they’re competing with free media. Why pay for a subscription to a news outlet when you can just read the same story reposted to a million other blogs for free? Of course, you might not get a well-researched version of the story, but you also won’t have to pay any money.
The video makes the argument that subscribing to creators on YouTube can have a similar effect because it creates a reliable stream of income, rather than relying on catchy headlines or the almighty algorithm, but this isn’t a perfect solution either. You could subscribe by buying into YouTube Red, but that’s not really a news-specific solution. (It’s also worth pointing out that MatPat, the creator behind the Film Theory channel, is also a major partner for YouTube Red originals.)
Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem with an easy solution. News writers always try to make money, but when that money’s scarce, they’ll turn to shady tactics. Subscriptions can help by providing a reliable source of income that incentivizes quality over clickbait, but not everyone wants to pay money for what they could get for free. Alternatively, we can collectively decide to ignore stories that are obviously made-up garbage, the same way we do with tabloids at the grocery store, but emotional reactions are hard to control en masse. However, if we want to combat the rising tide of garbage journalism, examining the economic incentives that create it is a great place to start.
Film Theory: Is Fake News KILLING the Internet? | The Film Theorists
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Soak Up Excess Fat from Saucy Dishes with Sliced Bread
Let’s say you’ve just made a stew, soup, or something with a layer of fat swimming on top and you want to get rid of it. You can use the ice cube trick, spoon the fat out, or refrigerate it to harden the fat and remove later. Those are good options, but now you have another: skim the top with sliced bread to sop up that grease.
I learned this bread trick while watching Gordon Ramsay do his chef stuff to make crispy, succulent-looking pork belly. At about the 2:52 mark in the video, he shows how he simply drags sliced bread across the surface of the sauce to soak up all of that fat. The bread is “like a perfect sponge” and also makes for awesome fry bread.
Slow-Roasted Pork Belly | Gordon Ramsay
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Use a White Balloon as a DIY Flash Diffuser When Shooting Portraits
Shooting photos using your camera’s built-in flash can lead to harshly lit, unflattering photos, but if you’re in a dark space you need something to light your subject. Try using a white balloon as a pocketable flash diffuser that you can have ready to use in seconds.
As its name suggests, a flash diffuser takes the bright ‘spark’ of a camera flash and spreads it over a wider area, like a lampshade. This makes your photo subject more evenly lit, instead of looking like there’s a spotlight shining on them. In this video from the Kuldonov Brothers we see how a white balloon can serve as a diffuser in a pinch. (You can buy an actual attachment that sits over your camera’s flash, but those are usual designed for speedlight attachments, and besides, it’s an extra bit of kit to carry around). I’ve occasionally experimented with holding plain white paper over the camera flash, and really you can try using any white semi-opaque surface. A white balloon, though, is surprisingly effective.
Simple diffuser for pop-up flash in portrait photography | Kuldonov Brothers via PetaPixel
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Friday, December 23, 2016
Friday Squid Blogging: Squidmas Cards
Merry Squidmas.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
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Get Into the Holiday Spirits With a Festive "Snowglobe Cocktail"
If you’re searching for the perfect holiday-themed cocktail to sip in front of the fire, look no further. This snowglobe cocktail is as festive as it gets.
This video from the Cocktail Chemistry YouTube channel shows you how to make one of the most festive cocktails you’ll ever see. You’ll need some caramel, cranberries, gin, rosemary syrup, a little citric acid (since the drink needs to be clear,) and some club soda. You’ll also need a sprig of rosemary to be your Christmas tree and a spherical, globe-like glass. He uses an actual globe glass, but you could probably achieve a similar effect with a stemless wine glass.
The trick is to use the caramel, or other edible adhesive, to stick the rosemary sprig to the bottom of the glass so it looks like a standing tree. Now mix 3/4 of an ounce of rosemary simple syrup, one ounce of citric acid solution, and two ounces of dry gin. Add it to your glass, then top it off with a little club soda and some cranberries for garnish. Add a candy cane-style straw and it’s ready to serve.
Advanced Techniques - How To Make A Snowglobe Cocktail | YouTube
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Fancy Up Some Cube Shelves with LED Strips
A few strips of LED lights can do a lot to lighten up a room, and YouTuber Darbin Orvar shows off a project that mounts a set of LED-lit cube shelves onto a wall.
This isn’t just slapping some LEDs inside a cubed shelf and calling it a day. She mounts the shelving to a platform that mounts to a wall as a whole unit, hides a set of wires behind it all, and adds in a switch so you can control when the lights are on. The whole projects documented on YouTube if you’re interested in taking it on yourself.
LED Wall Cube Shelves | YouTube
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Build Your Own Raspberry Pi Powered Smart Speaker
Media center-infused smart speakers and Bluetooth speakers are pretty common these days, but over on Hackaday, user Carlo Maria Curinga made one of the slickest looking little speakers we’ve seen yet.
The hardware here includes a Raspberry Pi, a DAC, an amp, speaker, and a little LED matrix for visual feedback. On the software end, the speaker functions as an MPD and HTTP server, and it can pull audio from a number of online services like Spotify, YouTube, and more. You can control and send music from your phone to the speaker easily. All told, it’s a pretty nifty little system that’s pretty easily to manipulate to suit whatever needs you might have. You’ll find everything you need to make one for yourself over on Curinga’s site below.
The making of Boombeastic: a Raspberry Pi-based connected speaker | Resin.io via Hackaday
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The Easiest Way to Open a Bottle of Wine Is With a Two-Prong Cork Puller
Simple corkscrews are tricky to master, and expensive corkscrews are, well, expensive. But I haven’t used a corkscrew in years, ever since I saw a pro opening bottles with a simple $5 two-prong cork puller. These devices are cheap, quick, easy, and just about foolproof.
To use one, you just put the long end between the cork and the bottle, then do the same with the other prong on the other side of the cork. Wiggle the two ends down until the prongs are all the way in the bottle. Then just pull the cork out, twisting as you go.
This video walks you through those motions, but once you know what you’re doing the whole process only takes a few seconds. Keep a cork puller in your kitchen drawer, and you’ll never be more than a minute away from an open bottle of wine.
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The Easiest Way to Pack a Bottle of Wine in a Suitcase
A bottle of wine is a common gift, but if you have a little travel between the bottle you want to give and the person you’re giving it to, you want to make sure it survives the journey. Grab a pair of socks—here’s the easiest way to do that.
While a bottle of wine can’t go through security in your carry-on, you can use this packing method if you’re checking your bag, driving, taking the train, or buy the wine in the airport and want to pack it then. All you need is a pair of thick socks and a sweater or thick scarf. If you only have thin socks, use several pairs.
Pull one sock over the bottle from the bottom up, then wrap the second sock around the neck (the most fragile part of the bottle). Roll your sweater or scarf around the bottle for extra cushion and place it between layers of clothes in your bag. You may want to wrap the bottle in a plastic bag just in case it does leak. You can also use this wrapping method for other delicate gifts or souvenirs, or just give them the bottle with the socks around it—just make them festive.
How to Pack Wine in Your Suitcase | Conde Nast Traveler (YouTube)
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Deadspin How Two Investigations Into Minnesota’s Sexual-Assault Scandal Reached Two Very Different C
Deadspin How Two Investigations Into Minnesota’s Sexual-Assault Scandal Reached Two Very Different Conclusions | The Slot Naive Trump Supporters Now Shocked By His Planned Parenthood Agenda, Despite, Ya Know, Mike Pence | Gizmodo Trump Just Called for a New Nuclear Arms Race and We’re All Going to Die | Jezebel Oh Goodie, the Radio City Rockettes Will Perform at Donald Trump’s Inauguration ‘Festivities’ |
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Russian Military Using Smart Phones to Track Troop Movements
Crowdstrike has an interesting blog post about how the Russian military is tracking Ukranian field artillery units by compromising soldiers' smart phones and tracking them.
News article.
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The Difference Between Confidence and Arrogance, Explained In One Video
Confidence is a vitally important personality trait, but you might worry that acting more confident could come off as arrogant. Fortunately, there are distinct indicators that distinguish the former from the latter.
As this video from Charisma on Command explains, confidence is rooted in reality, while arrogance positions a person higher or more valuable than they are. Of course, that can feel like an arbitrary scale. To some, you may be the most skilled, talented person in the world, while others may think you’re in over your head.
Fortunately, there are more objective indicators. Confidence, the video explains, acknowledges the contribution of others and will share credit. Arrogance, on the other hand, stems from a place of insecurity and a need to be validated. As such, it will often try to take credit for more than the person really did in an effort to boost themselves up.
On a more simple level, you can even demonstrate confidence over arrogance by being quieter. Arrogance likes to yell. Confidence can be quiet. In this case “loud” can refer to more than just your volume. You can be “loudly” arrogant by craving attention online, being pushy with your coworkers, or just never letting someone else speak, but confidence remains confidence even if it’s not the one in the room getting the most attention.
Conor McGregor: How To Be Confident Without Being Arrogant | Charisma On Command
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NIST is Continuing to Work on Post-Quantum-Computing Cryptography Standards
NIST is accepting proposals for public-key algorithms immune to quantum computing techniques. Details here. Deadline is the end of November 2017.
I applaud NIST for taking the lead on this, and for taking it now when there is no emergency and we have time to do this right.
Slashdot thread.
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Thursday, December 22, 2016
Passwords, patches and backup – three easy tips in our Facebook Live video
Even if you’ve already read our 12 Tips for Christmas article, we think you’ll enjoy our Facebook Live Christmas Tips video too.
If you’re going to see friends or family over the holidays, you may even be able to use our video as part of the IT support you’re likely to end up doing.
If we can give you ten minutes on the sofa when you’d otherwise be crawling around trying to untangle the network both literally and figuratively…
…enjoy it!
Rather than try to go through all 12 of the tips, we picked the Top Three of those:
- Tip #1: Clean up your passwords
- Tip #2: Patch your stuff
- Tip #3: Backup your files
Here you are – those three tips explained in plain English:
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How to Recycle During the Holidays
Americans spend about $3.2 billion a year on wrapping paper alone, and that material helps contribute to the extra 25 million tons of garbage tossed out every year during the holiday season. If you want to reduce your waste output, try these holiday recycling tips.
According to Stanford University and the California Department of Conservation, it’s estimated that Americans could save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields if each family wrapped just three presents in re-used materials. If you want to do your part, here’s how you can make your holiday season greener:
- Use recyclable wrapping paper: Foil and shiny wrapping paper can’t be recycled, so opt for post-consumer wrapping paper and packaging. And don’t forget to actually recycle it.
- Get creative when wrapping presents: Old newspapers, maps, and comic books are all great ways to wrap a gift without being wasteful.
- Remove bows and ribbons before recycling: Before you toss your recyclable wrapping paper in the proper bin, pull off all non-recyclable pieces and save them for later use. Many ribbons, bows, and other decorative pieces can be attached with gifts with a single piece of clear tape.
- Use gift bags instead: Wrapping paper looks lovely, but you can re-use a gift bag over and over. You can even buy non-holiday themed bags so you can use them for birthdays and other events.
Also, be sure to fold your wrapping paper before recycling—don’t crumple it up into a ball. It helps if you have a bag ready to collect all of your folded wrapping paper before you start opening gifts. And if you can’t recycle it, shred it and use it as packing material when you send out gifts next year.
How to Recycle During the Holidays | YouTube
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Deadspin The New Frontier In Stadium Ripoffs | The Slot Man Kicked Off JetBlue Flight After Demandin
Deadspin The New Frontier In Stadium Ripoffs | The Slot Man Kicked Off JetBlue Flight After Demanding to Know Why Ivanka Trump Is Flying Commercial | Gizmodo Incoming Star Could Spawn Swarms of Comets When It Passes Our Sun | The Concourse The Least Important Writers Of 2016 |
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The Future of Faking Audio and Video
This Verge article isn't great, but we are certainly moving into a future where audio and video will be easy to fake, and easier to fake undetectably. This is going to make propaganda easier, with all of the ill effects we've already seen turned up to eleven.
I don't have a good solution for this.
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Keep Herb Crusts Firmly Stuck to Meat with an Egg White Baste
This video is really about turning an affordable chuck roast into a centerpiece-worthy meal, but what really stood out to us is at five minutes or so in, where Grant Crilly makes an herb crust—and then uses egg white to make sure the crust sticks—a technique you can use for any herb crusted anything you make.
This is probably an old chef’s trick, but it was brand new to me. Salt and pepper and rosemary are the order of the day for this particular chuck, but I imagine you can do the same with any set of herbs and spices, or a coffee rub if you so choose. Then all you need is a single egg’s worth of egg white, whisk it up until it’s good and fluffy, and then brush it onto the outside of the roast. Roll the now egg white-basted meat in the spices (or sprinkle them over, whichever) and you have an herb crust that’ll stick through cooking and carving.
It’s a simple trick that can transform a dish completely—and bring a chef’s technique home to your own kitchen, and those are my favorite ones. Give it a try yourself—all you need is an egg.
Transform Tough Chuck into a Tender Holiday Feast | ChefSteps (YouTube)
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Make Safe, Raw Cookie Dough With Graham Crackers
If, like me, you’re an ardent fan of raw cookie dough, you were probably super bummed to hear of this year’s tragic flour recall. (Thanks, 2016.) Luckily, the geniuses at delish have come up with a raw cookie dough recipe that’s made with graham crackers instead of flour, and it is delicious.
The dough was developed to go in the cookie dough trifle featured in the above video, but there’s no reason you can consume it on its own. To make the dough:
- Beat 1 1/2 cups of butter, 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract until smooth.
- Add in 3 1/4 cups of crushed graham crackers, 1/3 cup of milk, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1 1/3 cup of mini chocolate chips and stir to combine.
- If you plan to eat the dough on its own, set it in the fridge for about an hour to help “ break down the graham cracker bits, so it’s less gritty and more like a classic cookie dough.”
Once it’s chilled out for a bit, grab a spoon and chow down, or use it to make the super decadent trifle from the video. Honestly, both are good options.
This Cookie Dough Trifle Uses The Most Brilliant Trick To Make Cookie Dough | delish
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The Most Common Kettlebell Swing Mistakes and How to Fix Them
We’ve written about the benefits of adding kettlebells to your workouts and how the kettlebell swing exercise boosts your leg strength. Now the caveat: the kettlebell swing is hard to get right, with people making little mistakes that put them at risk of injury. Learn to avoid a world of hurt by knowing what not to do.
In this video, Pat Flynn goes over these five most common mistakes when people kettlebell swing:
- You swing with a rounded back. This makes you more likely to hurt your lower back. Two fixes here: keep your chest up and proud, like you want to show off your shirt logo, and your back straight by imagining you have to balance a broomstick on your back.
- You squat the kettlebell swing. At its core, the swing is a lot like a deadlift. You want to hinge at your hips, rather than squat down. In other words, butt goes back, not down.
- You use your arms too much. All of the power in a kettlebell swing comes from hinging your hips back and thrusting forward. Your arms only guide and control the kettlebell. Your arms don’t actually lift anything.
- Your heels come off the ground. Your feet should stay in contact with the ground the entire time, but you should focus on driving through your heels to push your hips forward.
- Your swing goes too high. Bringing the kettlebell above your head tends to make you overarch your back. Think of the kettlebell swing as a back and forth movement. There should be no “up” unless you’re doing a kettlebell snatch.
These mistakes aren’t unique to the kettlebell swing. Having a rounded back or letting your heels lift off the ground are never good things in about 99% of exercises. When practicing your kettlebell swing, be sure to use a weight that lets you swing with control but is also heavy enough to let you practice that hip snap.
5 Most Common Kettlebell Swing Mistakes (and How to Fix Them) | Pat Flynn
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