There are 3,880 posts filed in Life (this is page 282 of 388).
You can get this Goplus Magnetic Folding Rowing Machine on sale for $189.99 right now (reg. $399). It’s a basic rower that comes an LCD display that shows total count, calories, count per min, scan, and time, and it has 8 levels of adjustable tension. The rowing machine weights 49lbs and has a weight capacity of 220lbs.
You can get this Goplus Magnetic Folding Rowing Machine on sale for $189.99 right now (reg. $399), though prices can change at any time.
It’s increasingly hard to get away from generative artificial intelligence at the moment, with the tech finding its way into many of the apps and devices we use regularly. Even Microsoft Paint is getting an AI upgrade.
The image editing tool, which has been a fixture in Windows since the very first version of the operating system in 1985, now includes a feature called Cocreator that is capable of generating AI images from just a few text prompts.
If you’ve been keen to dabble in AI art production, you can now use Paint to do so. Just make sure you’ve updated both Windows 11 and Paint (via the Library tab in the Microsoft Store app) to the latest versions to make sure Cocreator appears.
Load up Paint on your Windows 11 machine, and you’ll find the Cocreator option on the right side of the top toolbar. This is still a preview version of the tool, so expect one or two bugs along the way. It’s powered by the DALL-E image generator—the same tech you can find in Microsoft’s other AI offerings (like Bing’s AI art generator).
The first time you load up Cocreator, you’ll have to click through a brief introduction before you can get started. The idea is the same as with most other AI image tools: You describe what the picture should show, like a path leading through a stormy wood, and you get a few image choices in return.
You can describe the type of picture you want—such as photo or something more abstract—in the text prompt, but Cocreator also offers a style drop-down menu underneath you can use to pick a particular style. Your options are Charcoal, Ink Sketch, Watercolor, Oil Painting, Digital Art, Photorealistic, Anime, and Pixel Art, so you’ve got a lot of options to play around with.
When you’re happy with your prompt and style pick, click Create. After a few moments, you’ll get three different variations to choose between: Click on any image to open it in Paint to edit it, or click the three dots on the thumbnail and choose Save image to save it to disk.
Like the AI art generation tools Microsoft makes available elsewhere in its products, each picture will cost you a credit—you’re given 50 to get started with, and (as far as we can tell from reports from other users on the web) a limited but regular allocation after that. Microsoft doesn’t officially say how many credits you get, but it’s most likely a fluid system that’s used to manage demand.
There aren’t a huge number of options to play around with when it comes to Cocreator in Paint: It’s not possible to change the dimensions or the aspect ratio of your images, for instance, so you have to settle for the default 1,024 x 1,024 squares that the tool outputs (though you can later stretch or crop these, of course).
As with other similar image generators, more detail in your prompt often helps generate better images. If you want a particular object in the picture, the image to have a particular vibe, or to use a particular color scheme, then say so—most of the time, Paint will understand what you mean, and produce something suitable.
Bear in mind your original prompt stays in place on screen even after you’ve clicked the Create button, so you can make adjustments to it based on the results you’re seeing. However, it lacks the precision necessary to get something that’s exactly to your requirements. Human beings are still required for that.
Remember, too, that Paint is still Paint, and you still have its image editing capabilities to take advantage of. The Pencil and Fill options on the toolbar are perhaps the most useful when it comes to editing something that Cocreator has generated. Use the color picker to the side and the Brushes drop-down to change how your scribblings look on screen.
Microsoft Paint also now supports layers, which you’re able to access through the icon to the far right of the top toolbar. Different AI images can be positioned on different layers—just select them from the sidebar on the right—giving you more ways to combine different artworks together. You can, for example, use the Eraser tool to remove part of a layer and reveal what’s on the layer underneath.
The Xbox Series X comes with a regular controller, but those looking for a higher-end experience, customization, and a few more features might be tempted by an Xbox Elite controller. That temptation might come to a screeching halt once they see the Elite controller is more than twice as expensive as a regular Xbox controller.
However, right now, Microsoft is knocking $44 off the price of the red Core Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, bringing it down to a slightly more reasonable $95.99 (originally $139.99). The same controller with extra components is also available for $150.99 (originally $179.99).
The Elite Series 2 wireless controller was launched in 2019, and is the among the best controllers for the Xbox One/Xbox Series and for PCs, according to our sister site, PCMag. The main sticking point is the price. Microsoft re-released it two years later, minus some non-essential accessories—like a carrying case and customizable hardware, like a cradle, rear paddles alternate analog sticks, and direction pads—and called it the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 Core. The Core launched for $129.99 with just the essential hardware but the same software, leaving the door open for people to buy the additional hardware if they want to upgrade later.
Remember that Xbox no longer allows third-party controller accessories to be compatible with the Xbox, so don’t try to cut corners with a cheaper controller. Getting a Microsoft controller means you can also use your Xbox controller to play Steam games on your PC, and if you like playing on multiple devices, there’s a way to swap between your most recently used Xbox console and your PC or mobile device automatically.
Giving someone unwelcome—and often unexpected—information is such an unpleasant experience that we have not one, but two common expressions acknowledging it. Whether it’s announcing that we “hate to be the bearer of bad news,” or asking the recipient of the news not to “shoot the messenger,” these phrases are more about absolving ourselves of any guilt we may be feeling about delivering the less-than-desirable message than it is about making it easier on the other person.
There are also a handful of other common expressions we pepper into these conversations that we may think are helpful or comforting, but are actually the opposite. When tasked with delivering bad news, we may be ultra-conscious of our body language, and using an appropriate tone. While those aspects of the conversation are certainly important, focusing on them may make what we’re actually saying to the person an afterthought—prompting us to recite tired lines that are not only cliché, but in some cases, lack empathy. Examples of those phrases to avoid include:
We may think that this phrase helps put things in perspective for the recipient of the bad news, and in a way, it does—demonstrating that the current situation could, in fact, be worse if someone were to minimize its impact. Or, as Ray W. Christner a licensed psychologist with an independent practice in Hanover, Pa. puts it: “[The phrase] can be viewed as a dismissal of the experience, and invalidate the person’s feelings.”
According to Christner, statements like this can be upsetting as it implies there’s a justification for the bad news. Telling someone something they don’t want to hear is bad enough without making it sound like their misfortune was a necessary step towards something bigger—which they may or may not benefit from themselves. See also: “This is all part of God’s plan.”
In addition to lacking empathy, using phrases like this one—suggesting that the bad news isn’t a big deal—can change the context of the message, says Aura De Los Santos, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in the Dominican Republic. “Try to be direct and tell it like it is,” she says. “That doesn’t mean saying it in a rude way, but expressing it clearly so that the receiver can express the right emotions.”
As adults, we should understand that experiences are unique to each person. “We use this in an attempt to ‘normalize’ the experience, but this can be viewed as inconsiderate and unconcerned,” Christner says. Instead, he suggests saying, “I’m sure that’s hard, and I’m here for you to support in anyway.”
As Lifehacker Managing Editor Meghan Walbert explained in 2019, this phrase “is minimizing at best and offensive at worst.” It’s in the same category as “look on the bright side.” In short, don’t use it—even if you think you’re being helpful.
Like several of the other phrases on this list, this one “uses language that is laced with the sender’s judgment of the news, instead of letting the receiver make sense of the news and determine their own feelings,” says Hannah Yang, licensed psychologist and founder of Balanced Awakening, a psychotherapy practice for women and couples in Chicago.
Rather than relying on the clichés above, Yang and Christner have some suggestions for getting through the tough conversation:
Though you may be tempted to get the unpleasant task of delivering bad news over with as quickly as possible, Christner says that rushing through the conversation isn’t a good idea. “It’s OK to pause and have a moment of silence to intentionally choose the words you want to use,” he says.
Yang recommends choosing language “that conveys compassion and an openness for whatever the receiver’s feelings may be,” as it can help them stay calm at a tense moment.
Focus on communicating the facts of the situation. “Wait for the receiver to respond before adding anything else,” Yang says. “See how they make sense of the news first, then come up with a response that is supportive of their initial understanding of the news.” Again, avoid downplaying the bad news, or the person’s reaction to it. Instead, she suggests saying things like, “Yeah, this is hard news to digest,” or “it may take a while to process this.”
When you’re looking for a punchy ingredient that brings wild brightness, heat, and aroma all its own, ginger is number one. Fresh ginger is a powerful ingredient that can transform soups, marinades, cookies, or a humble mug of tea. Like many fresh aromatics, just a dollar or two can buy you enough to last a while, especially if you know how to prepare it and freeze it. Peeling the dry, dusty skin can be the most awkward part of using ginger, and while you don’t necessarily need to, here are a few ways to do it efficiently.
You can carefully peel plenty of things with a paring knife, so why not now? Ginger presents two challenges to the knife: it’s round and curvaceous, and the skin is incredibly thin and slick. Using a knife to peel ginger will inevitably result in cutting away too much of the valuable flesh along with the skin. The same goes for a potato peeler. Most peelers are too wide to adjust to the curvatures of ginger, and the angle of the blade can cut in too deep, resulting in ginger loss.
How you plan to use the ginger can help you decide which method is best for the situation. Grating ginger is best for when you want the root to disappear into a mixture. These minuscule bits are ideal for baked goods, sauces, or marinades. Chopped ginger may be more your speed, especially if you want the ginger to be a presence in the final dish. Minced or matchsticks of ginger can be best for stir fries, soups, or dumplings. Consider if you’re using the ginger root in a presentational way. Are you candying it, or slicing thin cross sections of the root with a mandolin? Then you may want to consider peeling the root in a way that preserves the natural shape.
This peeling method is the most popular, likely because it’s not terribly difficult and pretty much everyone has a spoon handy, even in a college dorm room. Use a metal spoon. The best ones for this purpose are small, for maneuverability around the nodes, and have a thin edge in order to easily lift the skin.
Hold the ginger securely in your non-dominant hand. With the other hand, use firm pressure to scrape against the ginger. It may take a couple tries to snag the skin, but once you do it’s easy to continue. You can scrape toward yourself or away from yourself, it’s really whatever feels right. I do a mixture of scraping down toward the plate for large sections and then scraping up toward myself for the detail work.
Take care not to carve out chunks of the ginger with the spoon. Rushing this process will only damage the flavorsome stem, so take your time. This method is ideal for chopping the root into large chunks, mincing, or matchsticks.
A microplane is a handy kitchen tool composed of a series of mini-blades. You can buy narrow ones or wide ones and finely grate veggies, zest citrus, or micro-shred hard cheeses. You can also prepare ginger with a microplane.
Use it to remove the skin. A microplane makes an excellent citrus zester because the blades are small and make shallow cuts, just removing the thin oil-laden layer of citrus fruit. Use a microplane to do the same with ginger, except this time the “zest” is trash. Gently rub the ginger against the lifted tines of the microplane once or twice and do a quick check to see how it went. If you need more or less force, adjust your pressure. Repeat this, checking frequently, to make your way around the stem. I find that thinner microplanes are better for getting around the body of the ginger. Mine has tines curved around the sides as well so I can use them to navigate the smaller areas. Some areas will be too tight, so you can either break these off, or use your finger nail to scrape the skin from those tiny spots (sorry if that’s gross, I’m a cave troll).
Just grate it all. As I mentioned, ginger skin is really very thin. Although I wouldn’t love to eat a large strip of skin, teeny tiny grated bits won’t even register on your palate. Grate the stem, peel and all, on the microplane. Some of the skin will make it through, but you can see in the picture that a lot of the skin actually curls up on the other side and doesn’t fall through. Just brush it off into the trash. Grated ginger is delicious as an aromatic base for sauces, stir fries, and marinades. You can also use it like this for batters and icings.
I saw this technique used by Thomas Keller to preserve the round shape of carrots. While it’s effective, I think it’s only really necessary if you’re working at The French Laundry. But you might be whipping up Michelin star creations, so who am I to keep techniques hidden from you?
Use a green scrubby dish pad to rub off the ginger’s skin. I have a thick green pad in the picture, but the super-thin, cheap ones are better for bending and applying pressure. Apply pressure and scrub away. You’ll be able to navigate the curves of the stem with the edges of the pad and keep the beautiful roundness of the plant. Unfortunately, once the pad gets clogged up with fiber you have to use an area of fresh scrubby. So this method requires you to rinse off the pad every now and then. Use this peeling method when the appearance is a high priority, so if you’re making candied ginger planks, or dehydrated ginger chips for garnishing cocktails or an entremet. If you are, send a picture, I’d love to see it. Happy ginger peeling.
Video streaming platform Max’s catalog features over 2,000 movies, which can feel a bit paralyzing. Rather than being doomed to scroll endlessly on movie night looking for something good, I’ve winnowed it down to six great movies that appeared on Max recently. If you want a rock-doc, you can’t miss with Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me. If you’re in the mood for a smart-but-charming family comedy, check out Our Idiot Brother. If it’s been a few years, re-watch The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. And definitely don’t sleep on The Last Black Man in San Francisco.
First-time director Joe Talbot blew the doors off the cinema world with this visionary feature. Jimmie and Monty are best friends who live in San Francisco in the near future. Gentrifiers live in the house Jimmie’s grandfather built, and he wants it back. That spare story opens into a film that mixes fantasy and reality to explore what the modern world is doing to tradition, family, community, and love.
Formed in 1972, rock band Big Star was as important and influential as The Beatles, but hardly anyone noticed them while they were around—despite its title, their debut album, “#1 Record” sold less than 10,000 copies. It wasn’t until after they’d broken up that their collected works were rediscovered and went on to influence basically every worthwhile rock musician, from Kurt Cobain to Elliott Smith to The Replacements. This documentary chronicles Big Star’s troubled career and the lives of its members, and tries to answer a burning question: “Why wasn’t Big Star the biggest band on earth?”
Fearless journalist and commentator Molly Ivins’ life’s work was speaking truth to power. Through recollections of the people she knew and inspired—Rachel Maddow, Paul Krugman, Dan Rather, and more—and archival footage of her no-bullshit interviews, Raise Hell takes us inside the work and life of a journalistic titan who ruled both print and broadcast journalism for decades.
Our Idiot Brother isn’t perfect, but the cast is so charming, and the story so refreshingly bullshit-free, you’ll forgive any faults. Paul Rudd plays Ned Rochlin, the “idiot” of the tile. He is as trusting, loving, and loyal as the golden retriever he loves, but his steadfast belief in the goodness of others leads to prison, a romantic break-up, and being forced to back to his mother’s house. An indie-style family comedy without the cynicism that’s so pervasive in the genre, Our Idiot Brother is a gem.
You can watch Sergio Leone’s mid-60s masterpiece over and over, and notice something new with each viewing. On the surface, it’s the story of a trio of cowboys trying to find (and steal) a fortune in buried gold. But it’s really about a battle between demi-gods. Through Leone’s lens, the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the title are bigger than the Western mountains, and their epic struggle plays out like an ancient myth against the backdrop of the Civil War. You can check out the other two iconic Sergio Leone-Clint Eastwood team-ups, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, on Max too.
Back in December, we learned that governments and law enforcement agencies are able to spy on your smartphone activity by requesting your push notification data from Apple or Google. Very cool and unconcerning! But as it turns out, it’s not just the authorities who can scrape your push notification data: Apps do it too, without you ever opening said app in the first place. But you can put a stop to it.
As security research duo Mysk explains in this video, apps are taking advantage of a loophole in iOS push notifications to scrape personal data on your iPhone and send it back to remote servers. Here how it works: iOS allows apps to wake in the background when push notifications come through in order to allow the app to decrypt the payload (the message contained in the notification), or download data attached to the alert. But according to Mysk, many “data-hungry” apps use this as an opportunity to send data analytics to their servers, rather than just make network calls to customize the notification, as would reportedly be expected.
Aside from being a sketchy practice, this abuse of push notification downtime can actually be used to “fingerprint” (that is, track) users. Mysk demonstrates how when a TikTok notification comes through, the app immediately sends off data analytics. When Mysk clears the notification, TikTok sends more data, including system uptime (how long iOS has been up and running on your iPhone). That means TikTok can see how long it’s been since you restarted your iPhone, even though you never actually opened the app.
Something similar happens with Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Bing notifications: When Mysk clears these alerts, the app scrape the iPhone’s uptime, in addition to other device information. As explained in a post on X, other device data includes locale (your device’s language settings), keyboard language, available memory, battery status, device model, and display brightness, among others. Theoretically, Mysk says, this data can be used to track a user’s activities across iOS without you ever actually opening the app involved.
At this time, the only known solution is the most obvious: disable push notifications for all apps. It’s the same solution we offerd when we learned law enforcement agencies and governments are able to request user push notification data from Apple and Google: simply cut off access to the data these companies want so badly.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. Notifications can be useful, especially with messaging apps that let you know when a new text has come through. Disabling push notifications for these apps puts you at risk of falling far behind in group threads and personal chats, which defeats much of the purpose of carrying a smartphone in the first place.
That means it’s really up to you: what level of data tracking can you tolerate? My recommendation is to disable notifications for any and every app you can afford to. I keep Snapchat notifications turned off at all times, for example, because I’m fine manually checking the app for new snaps (an added benefit: I cannot stand the obnoxious and irrelevant notifications Snapchat loves to spam me with, and no I don’t get them). I keep notifications enabled for my messaging apps, because even if Meta is scraping my data, I don’t want to miss new alerts from friends and family.
Hopefully Apple will address this privacy and security flaw soon, and block apps from being able to leach this information whenever a push notification comes through. Until then, our only option is to block these apps from alerting us at all.
Everyone can appreciate a delicious beverage, and if it helps you navigate Dry January while also making it easier for you to fall asleep, what’s not to love? TikTok is currently all about the so-called “Sleepy Girl Mocktail,” a drink made with tart cherry juice and a bunch of link-in-bio supplements. But will it actually help you sleep? Well…maybe.
After completing entire minutes of TikTok research, I can report that the Sleepy Girl Mocktail has three key ingredients:
Tart cherry juice
Seltzer
Magnesium supplement powder
The various TikTok creators making this drink each put their own spin on it. Sometimes you use a specific amount of tart cherry juice and then add seltzer to fill your glass; sometimes the other way around. You can toss in a fancy ice cube. You can use a flavored seltzer. And you can, of course, argue that you should use this brand or type of magnesium instead of that one.
Supplement marketing seems to be driving this trend. (Whichever one the creator recommends is usually available for purchase if you click through to their storefront.) One of the top results for the mocktail recipe on TikTok is from Moon Juice, which sells a $10/ounce magnesium powder. (A normal price for magnesium supplements is more like $1/ounce, as in this one-pound tub from Nutricost. Just saying.)
Maybe. Tart cherry juice contains a small amount of natural melatonin, and melatonin is a hormone that our body uses to recognize when it’s nighttime. Melatonin supplements are widely available, and you can pick up some melatonin pills or gummies at any old grocery store if you’d like to see how it affects your sleep.
That said, melatonin can have side effects if taken in large doses, and it isn’t a quick fix for a messed-up sleep schedule. It’s best to think of it as one potential tool you can use to get better sleep—one part of a larger picture.
Many fruits do contain melatonin. Tart cherry has higher levels than most, so it’s fair to ask whether tart cherries, or their juice, really help you sleep. Several studies have done just that, and they don’t provide conclusive evidence either way. A 2010 study on 15 older adults with insomnia found that tart cherry juice may help with sleep, but not as much as melatonin supplements, sleep medications, or cognitive-behavioral therapy. Examine.com, which collects the results of a wide range of supplement studies, could only conclude that tart cherry juice is “possibly” helpful for improving your sleep quality.
The verdict on the sleepy time benefits of magnesium is also unclear. There is some evidence to suggest magnesium may help with sleep, but as with tart cherry juice, the evidence isn’t very strong, and many people find that it has no effect on their sleep.
One thing we do know about magnesium is that, taken in large doses, it can have a laxative effect. Sometimes people take magnesium supplements specifically for this reason—it’s sometimes recommended as a treatment for constipation. This laxative effect is more pronounced in some forms of magnesium than others. For example, magnesium carbonate, magnesium chloride, magnesium gluconate, magnesium hydroxide, and magnesium oxide are the most likely to trigger it, according to Examine.com, but effects vary from person to person. On TikTok I saw creators saying to avoid magnesium citrate because it “cleans you out,” but the conventional advice is that magnesium citrate is the least likely to have a laxative effect.
Whichever supplements you choose, you may want to experiment with a small dose before stirring a heaping spoonful into your Sleepy Girl Mocktail.
You can get the TruGolf Mini Simulator on sale for $229.99 right now (reg. $399.99). The TruGolf Mini Simulator is a portable home golf simulator with industry-leading E6 golf simulator technology that can be used for practice by avid golfers or for fun by amateur players. It’s equipped with E6 CONNECT software that gives users a more realistic experience with real-time swing data analytics, including readouts for club face angle, angle of attack, swing tempo, and club path. TruGolf only needs an iOS device or PC to connect to, and you can mirror your device screen onto a TV or projector for more immersive play. The included impact trainer delivers a clicking sensation to mimic the feeling of actually hitting a golf ball, and users can play on over 100 golf courses along with numerous skill challenges, driving ranges, and more.
You can get the TruGolf Mini Golf Simulator on sale for $229.99 right now (reg. $399.99), though prices can change at any time.
You can get a one-year subscription to YogaDownload on sale for $29.99 right now (reg. $119). YogaDownload is a subscription service that offers access to 1,500 online yoga and fitness classes designed for at-home workouts and that don’t require any equipment other than a basic yoga mat. You can stream live classes, and it also allows you to filter courses based on style, teacher, level, intensity, focus, and length of that class. You can download an unlimited number of yoga classes or access them online, and new courses are added every week, and you can participate in as many classes as you want.
You can get a one-year subscription to YogaDownload Unlimited on sale for $29.99 right now (reg. $119), though prices can change at any time.
