The Bears will have their choice to either use the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft or trade it to another team. Maybe a factor in whether or not the Bears keep Justin Fields, the return for the No. 1 pick poises to be “immense,” according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. Fowler illustrated NFL executives believe the return for…
January 2024
Fantasy Football Week 18 Rankings: Quarterbacks
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Tangzhong Is the Key to Making the Softest Bread You’ve Ever Had
Winter is my bread season. Not in terms of eating—please, that’s a year-round practice—but in terms of baking. While I love a crusty, seeded batard or tomato stained focaccia, I find eating a soft roll smeared with butter gives me a sensation akin to meditation. For soft, tender rolls that stay plush for days, use tangzhong in your bread dough.
What is Tangzhong?
Tangzhong is a gelatinized starch paste made by heating flour with milk or water. Incorporating tangzhong into doughs is a traditional Chinese technique to make soft breads, including pillowy steamed buns, but it’s not limited to that. It can be incorporated into any yeast bread recipe that’s meant to be soft.
Why does it work?
Besides tasting damn delicious, starches are prized for their ability to thicken and gelatinize with water and heat. Tangzhong is no different. Flour is cooked with liquid, and during the process, the starch molecules engage with and hold onto more water as they swell and gelatinize. When you pre-cook some of the bread’s flour with water in this way, you’re able to increase the overall hydration of your bread dough without sacrificing the texture and stability of the raw dough. If you were to add that extra liquid without capturing it in gelatinous starch bubbles first, the bread dough would become extremely sticky, making it hard to shape, and possibly too heavy, resulting in an inferior rise.
Gelatinized starches, bloated with water, will share this springy, hydrated quality with the entire loaf of bread, resulting in tender, springy rolls perfect for tearing and shoving directly into your mouth; a fine-crumbed, sliceable loaf for sandwich bread; or a stable but soft, thick French toast. Although starch retrogradation will still happen, the tangzhong will buy you several days of soft, fluffy bread.
How do you make tangzhong?
Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Making tangzhong is similar to making a roux (a paste made by heating butter, flour, and a liquid), but it’s even easier. To make tangzhong, whisk one part flour to four or five parts liquid in a pot until smooth. Turn the heat on medium. I switch to a rubber spatula here because it makes better contact with the pan. Stir the mixture constantly until it thickens. This only takes about one minute for a small amount of tangzhong. Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature before incorporating it into the rest of the bread recipe.
Can you tangzhong any bread recipe?
I have used this recipe for Japanese milk bread from King Arthur Baking a few times, and it’s a great starter recipe with helpful GIFs and pictures if you’re new to using tangzhong. They don’t specify this in the steps, but my only word of advice is to dissolve the milk powder into the whole milk first when you get to the dough section.
Otherwise, you can add a tangzhong component to any bread recipe that you wish was more springy and soft. That being said, it will take some experimentation depending on the recipe’s ingredients and existing hydration levels. Start small, using around 5% of the total amount of flour to make the tangzhong. You can see in the King Arthur recipe I linked to above that they only use two tablespoons of flour to start building the tangzhong. That’s only 14 grams of flour compared to the 300 grams used in the rest of the recipe.
Try the ratio of one part flour to four parts liquid by weight. Take the flour from the measurement indicated in your recipe. In other words, after you measure out the total amount of flour, scoop a tablespoon or two out of that bowl. Whisk and cook it with liquid additional to the liquid measurement in your recipe. Since much of the point is for your bread dough to hold onto additional hydration, this is where you want to add extra water. The starch will be absorbing that water, so adding extra is a good way to keep the finished dough from becoming too stiff. (You can read here for more about calculating the increased hydration in your recipe.)
Once your tangzhong is ready and you’ve cooled it to room temperature, add it into the mixing bowl after the yeast has bloomed and along with all of the other dough ingredients. Proceed with mixing and proofing as indicated in your recipe. Your bread will bake up tall and fluffy with a fine, tender crumb. It’s divine. (Angels and gods definitely eat bread made with pre-gelatinized starch.) Try it for your next batch of soft rolls. You’ll swear by it.
The Best Ways to Use the New Microsoft Copilot AI App
You’d be forgiven for losing track of where we’re up to with Microsoft’s AI chatbot—which, thanks to a partnership with OpenAI, is powered by the same technology you’ll find driving ChatGPT and DALL-E. Originally called Bing Chat and acting as an extension of Microsoft’s search engine, the bot has since been rebranded as Copilot.
Copilot is quickly finding its way into Windows 11 and various other Microsoft products, and we now have a standalone app to make use of. It’s essentially a spin-off of the Bing app on iOS and Android, with the main AI chatbot functions retained and some of the other Bing extras (like news and shopping deals). Microsoft first launched the app on Android, but shipped the iOS version three days later.
If you’re curious about testing out Copilot’s generative AI capabilities on your iPhone or Android device, here’s how to get started with the app and what you need to know about how it works.
First steps with the Copilot app
You can grab Copilot free of charge from the Google Play Store on Android or the iOS App Store, and you can get started right after installing it: You don’t even need to sign in with a Microsoft account, though if you don’t you’ll be limited to five queries per day, and you won’t have access to some of the more advanced features (including AI image generation).
There are a few options when it comes to interacting with the bot. You can tap on one of the suggested prompts, type out a question or prompt in the text box at the bottom of the screen, or tap the microphone button (bottom right) and speak directly to Copilot (and get spoken answers in return). If you use the voice option, the mic icon changes to a keyboard icon for when you need to go back to text prompts.
Copilot puts generative AI at your fingertips.
Credit: Lifehacker
Credit: Lifehacker
You’ll also see a camera icon at the bottom of the interface—tap this, and you’re able to upload a photo from your phone (or take a new one) for Copilot to analyze. You might want to ask something about what’s in the picture, for example, or produce a new image based on the one that you’ve supplied.
There are no settings to speak of inside the app, but you can tap the three dots (top right) to start new topics and configure the “tones” of the chatbot. These tones let you choose a balance between creativity and precision, so make your choice accordingly based on whether you want the responses to be as imaginative as possible or as factually correct as possible (and as always, don’t believe everything an AI tells you).
Text generation
One of the primary ways you can use Copilot—as with ChatGPT and Google Bard—is to generate text with it. If you want to get creative with Copilot, you might want to ask it to compose a poem on the topic of your choice, and you can even specify the form, style, tone, and length of the poem if you want to.
There are more business-like applications of the technology, too: Copilot will compose an email to your boss, or a pitch to a client, or a summary of a concept for you. One of the ways in which these generative AI bots can be handy is in explaining difficult topics in simple terms—and you’re also able to ask follow-up questions if you need something clarifying further, or there’s a particular point you’re not sure on.
You can get the app to produce text in all kinds of ways.
Credit: Lifehacker
Credit: Lifehacker
Copilot can also work with text that you paste into it: You can ask for critical comments on your own writing, for instance, or ask to make a block of text more concise or more flamboyant in terms of its language. Note that there’s a copy icon at the end of each answer as well, so if you need to copy the text and paste it somewhere else, you can.
One huge perk of Copilot over ChatGPT is free access to GPT-4, a more powerful successor to the GPT-3.5 model. To use it, tap the Use GPT-4 toggle switch at the top of your chats. Just keep in mind the responses might be somewhat slower, and the results you get will generally be more natural and insightful, because they’re trained on more data.
Search, images, and more
Copilot goes way beyond text generation. You can, for example, ask it the same kinds of questions you might put into a search engine: Ask it for party game ideas, or for a travel itinerary for a particular city, or for products that it recommends, or for advice on how to achieve a particular task. If Copilot looks up something on the web, you’ll see website citations at the end of its response.
You can also try queries you might pose to Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant—while also bearing in mind that inaccuracies can creep in, even if Copilot is referencing the web. One genuine use for Copilot and other generative AI engines is to remember a word that’s on the tip of your tongue—if you describe the word you’re almost recalling, and put it in a sentence, Copilot will usually get the one you need.
Copilot can also produce images and search the web.
Credit: Lifehacker
Credit: Lifehacker
Image generation is built into Copilot too, so you can simply ask it to create pictures of anything you like from text prompts: Cats in hot air balloons, an alien cityscape, an exploding cup of coffee, or whatever you need. The image creation capabilities are the same as we’ve already seen on Bing, and you’ll be given four variations to pick from—tap on any of them to see a larger preview.
Microsoft hasn’t gone on record about its Copilot app yet, but as far as I can see, you’re limited to 30 inputs per conversation if you sign into the app. It’s possible that quotas will vary over time, as Microsoft manages demand for its powerful generative AI tools—which for now at least, you can use free of charge.
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Avoid Impulse Buying by Disabling Amazon’s 1-Click Ordering
If you have impulse control issues, it’s a good idea to turn off 1-Click shopping in your Amazon account. Amazon’s patented 1-Click is convenient, but it’s a bit of a trap. Dispensing with the virtual shopping cart that normally allows you to review your items before committing to a purchase means many people will buy things they might not have.
The average shopping cart abandonment rate for online purchases is about 70%. The top reason for abandoning carts: The “extra” costs—shipping, fees, taxes—are too high. You won’t see those fees if you process your purchase with a single click, so here’s how to turn off this ingenious-but-insidious feature. Sober second thoughts are always a good idea when you’re spending money, and they require more than the time it takes to click a mouse.
Disabling Amazon’s 1-Click from a browser
To Amazon’s credit, they’ve recently made it much easier to turn off one-click settings:
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In your Amazon account, look for “Accounts and Lists” in the drop-down menu just below your name on the top right of your screen.
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Select “My Account” in the drop-down menu.
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Then, on the lower left of your screen, under “Ordering and shopping preferences,” click on “1-Click settings.”
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You’ll be taken to the “Your purchase preferences” screen; the option to disable 1-Click will be in the top right corner.
Credit: Amazon -
You can choose to disable one-click buying on the specific device you’re using, or click “Manage 1-Click for your devices” or “Disable 1-Click everywhere.”
Disabling Amazon’s 1-Click from your iPhone
You can turn off instant-ordering from your phone too. Here’s how:
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Launch the Amazon app.
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Tap the “profile” icon in the bottom center of the screen.
Credit: Amazon -
Tap “Your Account.“
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Scroll down to “1-Click settings.“
Credit: Amazon
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You can choose to disable the settings on your phone or on all connected devices.
All the Ways Smart Tech Can Keep Your Pets From Escaping
When it comes to how smart technology can help manage your pets, you have options: There are smart feeders, smart pet cameras, and even smart pet tracker collars. Generally, I’m a little more lo-fi around my dog, but I adopted a doberman named Blueberry a few months ago, and despite the cozy offerings here, she has taken to going on neighborhood walkabouts in the last few weeks. With a six-foot fence surrounding my yard, I couldn’t figure out how she was escaping: Smart tech to the rescue.
Wireless security cameras really carry the heavy work here because they can be installed anywhere. I mounted mine to a 4×4 post I leaned against the house and moved around as needed. There are only two exit points to the yard, so I had to work my way backwards. I positioned cameras facing down the sides of the house to narrow down which side she was using. From there, I moved the cameras to the side of the house being used. I was able to figure out she was going over a fence using this method, but I still couldn’t figure out how. After repositioning the camera over the fence itself, I had my answer in less than 24 hours.
During this time, when I knew my dog was getting out, I set up a routine using IFTTT so each time the camera had motion activity, the lights in my house would flash on and off. This would tell me to immediately go to the front to call her back in. Luckily, my dog had little interest in wandering, just spider-monkeying up some chain link along the side of my house.
It would take a few days to remove this four-foot stretch of chain link fence between my house and the neighbor and construct a proper-eight foot fence Blueberry couldn’t climb. In the meanwhile, I left the alerts on for me, and used IFTTT to create a few alerts for my dog. Namely, I used a vibration sensor from Aqara on the fence and added a smart siren. I enclosed both in Tupperware to keep them from getting wet, and mounted the containers to the top of the fence. I set up an automation so anytime the vibration sensor went off, the speaker would set off a quick, loud alarm. I kept the automation simple so it would be fast. The loud noise acted as a behavior correction device, so Blueberry would drop off the fence. I set the automation to only run 7 a.m. through 11 p.m., so I wouldn’t disturb neighbors. At night, I set the camera to blast her with light if it detected motion.
While I was able to solve this problem using some routines and deduction, a solid way to ensure you always know if your dog leaves the yard is with a smart tracker on their collar. These generally have logic built into the app to set a geo-circle for your pet and alert you when they leave it.
Are the Clippers actually serious title contenders? | Good Word with Goodwill
Yahoo Sports senior NBA writer Vincent Goodwill takes a look at Los Angeles’ recent run and if the team can contend for a championship. Hear the full conversation on “Good Word with Goodwill” – part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.