The Mets will recall right-hander Christian Scott to make the start on Wednesday night against the Washington Nationals.
July 2024
Make These Fancy Crackers in Your Air Fryer
I’m not a wild spender when it comes to dining out, but a girl does like to be pampered sometimes. A few times a month, I don some “real clothes” (instead of my WFH duds) and I expect to be rewarded for it with an interesting cocktail and tasty morsels. These were provided recently at a Tom Colicchio spot I went to with friends, and the most amazing thing happened—we got a cheese board with salty, crunchy, seed-studded bread crackers. The amazing thing wasn’t that the crackers were expensive, flavorful, and interesting, but rather the realization that anyone can make very similar high-end crackers at home, for a fraction of the price, in an air fryer.
The air fryer makes quick crackers
Whether you’ve come to terms with this or not, the air fryer stinks for toasting toast, but it’s excellent for drying bread to a shattering crisp. The mini convection oven with its hot, high velocity winds is the ideal setting for drawing out moisture, and it does this much faster than a conventional oven. This is excellent news if you have any seeded loaves, especially stale ones you don’t see much of a future for.
I’ve noticed that whether they’re packaged in stores or on wine bar cheese boards, the fanciest of crackers are often “rustic”—thick brown bread and chock full of whole grains, seeds, or nuts. While you can turn most loaves into pretty good crackers with this technique, I like using ones with a more dense crumb (few big air pockets), and plenty of seeds and nuts. Both have natural oils that toast up nicely to reveal lots of flavor in the finished cracker, and that’s more than a lot of other crackers can say for themselves.
How to make fancy crackers in the air fryer
As an added bonus, there’s very little technique required to making a bangin’ bread cracker. The only challenge is ensuring the slice is thin enough but not so papery that it burns. I’ve found the best size is splitting the average factory slice in half. That’s about a quarter-inch thick if you’re cutting an unsliced loaf of bread.
1. Slice the bread
Cutting a thin slice of bread to be even thinner isn’t something you should rush. Using the same technique as you would to safely slice a bagel, slice horizontally using a serrated knife and keep your fingers up and out of the way.
2. An optional salty swipe
I snatched this idea from the same Tom Colicchio experience because crackers can be bland, and salt is good. Dissolve a quarter-teaspoon of salt in a tablespoon of hot water. Use a pastry brush to swipe the salty water over one side of each slice. The water will evaporate, leaving behind a thin layer of salt.
3. Air fry your slices
Lay the slices of bread in your air fryer basket and air fry at 325°F for 10 to 15 minutes. Flip the slices halfway through the cooking time, and check on them every now and again to see how they’re drying out.
Depending on the hydration of the bread, its thickness, and your air fryer, give or take a few minutes. Mine is an Instant Vortex and the sunflower seed bread was finished in about 12 minutes. The crackers should feel crisp, and if it’s a light colored bread it should be evenly and slightly browned. Cool them briefly on a wire rack before enjoying with your favorite cheeses, meats, spreads, and dips. Keep any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week.
Why NextEra Energy Partners Plunged Today
India wins T20 men’s cricket world cup against South Africa
Monday, July 1, 2024
Image: user:subzi73.
On Saturday, in the ninth edition of the T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup, Team India won against South Africa by seven runs. The final match was played at the Kensington Oval Stadium in Barbados. This marks India’s second win in the T20 World Cup, which was co-hosted by the West Indies and the USA between June 2nd and June 29th, 2024.
After winning the toss, India decided to bat first and scored 176 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. Virat Kohli top-scored with 76 runs, followed by Axar Patel with 47 runs. Hardik Pandya took three wickets, and Jasprit Bumrah took two wickets.
In the second innings, South Africa scored 169 runs for the loss of eight wickets, falling short by seven runs. Heinrich Klaasen scored the highest for his team with 52 runs, followed by Quinton de Kock’s 39 runs and Tristan Stubbs’s 31 runs. Among the bowlers, Keshav Maharaj and Anrich Nortje collectively took 4 wickets.
After the match, India’s captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli announced their retirement from T20 international cricket. Jasprit Bumrah was awarded the Player of the Tournament, having taken 15 wickets throughout the tournament.
South Africa’s captain, Aiden Markram commented after the match, “It’s just gut-wrenching. That’s really what it is. Each player has been on a different individual journey. And when you get really close like that, especially the nature of how the game went, it obviously adds to the emotions.”
Sources
[edit]
- Ali Martin. “Resolute India beat South Africa in thrilling final to lift T20 World Cup” — The Guardian, June 29, 2024
- “India vs South Africa highlights, T20 World Cup Final 2024: India end 11-year ICC trophy drought, beat South Africa in final for second T20 World Cup title” — The Times of India, June 29, 2024
- Mohammad Jazib. “List Of T20 World Cup Winners Till 2024” — Jagran Josh, June 29, 2024
- “Player Statics – ICC” — International Cricket Council, June 29, 2024
- “PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT – ICC” — International Cricket Council, June 29, 2024
Purdy amazingly makes less per year than former Mets slugger Bonilla
Star 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy amazingly makes less annually than former New York Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla.
Nvidia Stock Seen Reaching New High On ‘Robust’ Sales
How to Use Your Steam Deck’s New Built-in Recorder
On modern consoles like the PlayStation 5, recording gameplay is as easy as pressing a button. But on PC and Steam Deck, it’s always been a bit of a chore. In the past you’ve had to resort to a third party tool (or the the Windows Game Bar), but now Steam finally has an official screen recorder of its own.
Called Game Recording, the tool is currently in beta and is capable of recording in the background, recording only on demand, and even playing back your gameplay just for you so you can determine what went wrong when you died. It comes with a lightweight editor and timeline display for making clips, and can share footage directly to other devices or through a temporary URL. Users can also simply save an MP4 file of their recording for their own use.
Valve says the feature works with any game that supports the Steam overlay, even non-Steam titles (that is, games that the player doesn’t own on Steam, but is still using Steam to launch). The company is also releasing tools to allow game developers to interact with Steam’s recording features, letting them automatically mark the timeline to show where key events happened.
To try out Steam’s Recording features, you’ll need to enable beta features. Here’s how:
How to try out Steam Recording on a PC
Opting into game recording on PC is simple. Just open Steam, click on the Steam button in the top-left corner next to the logo, and pick Settings from the dropdown menu.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
In the pop-up, click on Interface next to the icon of a computer display, then click on the dropdown menu next to Client Beta Participation. Select Steam Beta Update and restart Steam.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
You’re almost there—from here, open any game that supports recording (most will) and press Shift+Tab to open the Steam Overlay.
Click the REC logo to open your Steam Settings to the Game Recording Tab. Choose whether you want Game Recording turned off, whether you only want to record on demand, or whether you want recording constantly running in the background.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Recording on demand will automatically save recordings as clips. Clicking it will let you select where on your PC you want them to save to and how high quality you want the footage to be. There’s also an option to record your microphone. And even though the recordings are saved as clips, you’ll still be able to edit them later.
Recording in the background will instead allow you to set a max length for your recordings before they turn off, plus how high quality you want them to be. Together, this will allow you to set a limit for how much storage space automatic recording will use. Old gameplay will be overwritten as you reach your limit. As with recording on demand, you can choose whether or not to record your microphone.
Once you’ve made your selection, actually recording footage is easy: When recording on demand, simply press Start Recording in the Steam Overlay to begin capturing your clip, and Stop Recording to finish. There’s also a keyboard shortcut to do this while in-game (defaulted to Ctrl+F11). Once you’ve saved your recording, you can edit and share it from the overlay.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Meanwhile, pressing Shift + Tab at any time with background recording active will allow you to scrub your recording’s timeline in real-time, letting you view your saved gameplay even while it’s still recording. Press the Clip button next to the scissors icon to start editing a clip, and press the marker button (it looks like a pin) in the bottom left of the timeline to add a marker to help you edit. Alternatively, press Ctrl+F12 while playing to place a marker at the current point (this also works when recording on demand).
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Once you close your game, you’ll also see your recorded footage on that game’s page in your library, where you’ll be able to edit it as well.
Conveniently, turning off background recording at any point will also give you a pop-up box where you can quickly delete any previously recorded footage to save space.
How to try Steam Recording on a Steam Deck
Recording on the Steam Deck works much the same as recording on a PC, but you’ll have to take a few extra steps to get started.
From the Steam Deck’s main menu, press the Steam button on your device. Navigate down to Settings next to the cog icon and click System. From here, click into the dropdown menu under Beta Participation, and next to System Update Channel. Click Beta and restart your Steam Deck. Open the Settings menu again, then click Apply next to Software Updates. Restart one more time.
Now, press the Steam button again and scroll down to Game Recording under Settings. You’ll see the same menu as on PC and be able to make the same adjustments. To fit the Steam Deck’s controller, your keyboard shortcuts will now be set to Steam + A to start/stop a recording and Steam + Y to place a marker. As on PC, you can adjust these as you wish.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Open a game, press the Steam button one more time, and scroll down to Game Recording. Here, you’ll be able to start/stop a recording (if you’re not already recording in the background), place a marker, and view previously recorded footage, where you’ll see the same interface as on PC, down to sharing settings. And just like on PC, recorded footage will still show up on your game’s library page, so you can view and edit it even while the game is closed.
And that’s it—Steam’s Game Recording feature is surprisingly robust for a beta, and it’s definitely worth giving it a shot, if only because of how easy Valve makes it to place caps on storage and delete unneeded footage. I also didn’t notice much of a hit to performance while testing; Valve says it’s designed Game Recording to use your graphics card to take “as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible.”
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5 most intriguing moves in NBA free agency (so far) & Pistons hire J.B. Bickerstaff | Good Word with Goodwill
Vincent Goodwill and Sam Amick from The Athletic catch up on NBA free agency after the first day of movement, including Paul George leaving the Clippers to sign with the 76ers.
Seven New Copilot Features in Microsoft 365
Copilot has changed quite a bit since the start of this year. Not only does the bot have an official app, but now anyone with a Microsoft 365 account can access Copilot in apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Before, it was exclusive to business users.
If you have Microsoft 365 and Copilot Pro, or your company uses this suite of tools, there are some new Copilot features you can access right now. Microsoft announced a list of 14 new Copilot features rolling out this month, but seven of those really apply to admins and management. For the rest of us, the other seven are key new features to look out for:
You can generate images directly in Word and Powerpoint documents
This month, both Word and Powerpoint will let you generate images and search for stock images using Copilot via Microsoft Designer. If you prompt Copilot to generate you an image, it will create and present the usual series of options, which you can choose from to insert into your doc. When using the feature in Powerpoint, Designer will incorporate it in a “compelling slide design.”
Credit: Microsoft
Reference PDFs, emails, and meetings in Word
Starting last month, Microsoft rolled out the ability to reference PDFs and encrypted Word docs using Copilot in Word. This month, the company will also add the ability to reference Microsoft Cloud info, which includes your emails and meetings. Those updates add on to the data types you could reference previously, including Word and PowerPoint files.
Going forward, you will be able to pull these files types into your prompts with Copilot in Word. If you call on Copilot and ask it to write you a project proposal, you can have Copilot base it on one of these files from an expanded menu. If you discussed the project in depth in a meeting, or if the notes are laid out in a PDF, Copilot will be able to analyze that doc or file and generate a report from it.
Credit: Microsoft
Expanded support for creating PowerPoint presentations from PDFs and encrypted Word files
Similarly, Microsoft rolled out the ability to create PowerPoint presentations from new PDF and Word file types in June. You can also reference Word docs and PowerPoint presentations in PowerPoint itself.
However you create a PowerPoint presentation with Copilot, you should notice three key improvements to how the AI handles the PowerPoint doc, including improved titles, sections, and slides; presentation structures with slides for your agenda, sections, and conclusion; and new transitions and animations.
In addition, PowerPoint chat can answer questions using Microsoft cloud, Microsoft Graph, and Bing.
New features in Excel
Microsoft announced three new Copilot features for Excel, all of which are rolling out this month:
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Copilot now works with data ranges “resembling tables” with headers along a single row. Microsoft says this is more efficient than before, as you won’t need to format data before calling in Copilot.
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The edit box is available no matter which cell you have selected, so you can use Copilot without needing to worry about where you are in your spreadsheet.
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Copilot will be more conversational with its responses to questions about Excel data, including offering step-by-step instructions for certain tasks.
Credit: Microsoft
Copilot in Teams
Do you know who you’re chatting with at work? You may think you do, but the more AI features take over our work programs, the less you may be interacting with a real human being.
A new Teams features rolling out right now is Copilot integration in Teams chats and channels. After typing out your message, you can prompt Copilot to adjust your words in any way you want. Microsoft suggests prompts like “add a call to action,” “make it persuasive,” or “convert my message into a list and add inclusive language.”
You might think your boss sent the team a hand-written message, or that you’re having a fun chat with a coworker. But, for all you know, they used Copilot to change their words. You may, in fact, be chatting with an LLM.
If you’re using Copilot to write a joke for your coworkers, please don’t.
Credit: Microsoft
Credit: Microsoft
Copilot lets you rewrite content in SharePoint
Copilot rewriting has come to SharePoint: If you use the app to create websites for your organization, you’ll be able to use familiar Copilot tools to rewrite text. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything particularly innovative here, mind you. It seems like these are the usual rewriting tools you’d expect from generative AI. However, now you can use them directly in SharePoint. This is rolling out this month.
Copilot in Loop
Loop is Microsoft’s collaborative workspace app, allowing team members to work together on a project in real time. While you can start a project from scratch with a blank canvas or from a template, Microsoft wants you to use Copilot to generate a “structured document ready for team collaboration.” If you use Loop, you can try asking Copilot to set up your workspace based on whatever parameters you need. Microsoft introduced this feature in May.
Credit: Microsoft