How To: Make an Ovitrap Mosquito Trap
Do you have a major mosquito problem? Well, here's a solution used by the military to drastically cut down their numbers.
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Weird Ingredient Wednesday: The Geoduck, a Mollusk as Weird as It Is Phallic
When you think of bivalves, such as manila clams and oysters, you tend to think of the meat as being nicely tucked in the shell. Anything else would be scary, right?
News: The Fantastical, Flavorful Fiddlehead Fern
Fiddlehead ferns look like something from Alice in Wonderland, or something that you might see when you close your eyes while listening to Pink Floyd and enjoying some herbal refreshment. What they don't look like is a tasty vegetable that's perfect for any spring or summer dish. Yet that is exactly what these bizarre spirals are. What Are They?
How To: The Trick to Cutting Onions Without Making You Cry
Even though you may love onions, cutting them is probably a completely different story. You've really got to be a pro at slicing and dicing them without getting frustrated, and even then they can still make your cry—literally. But if you don't want to wear a pair of goggles to keep those tears from falling, you have to cut your onions in a very special way.
How To: 7 Gorgeous Popsicle Recipes for Summer (Including Boozy "Poptails" for Adults)
Ice pops are like summer on a stick, with all the sweetness and stickiness of July and August. Store-bought popsicles, although refreshing, are never as good as homemade. So it's time to up your popsicle game with some of these beautiful creations, including some boozy pops (poptails) for adults.
News: Hacking SCADA
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates!
News: These Edible Flowers Will Literally Shock You
Eating flowers is a time-honored culinary tradition, from nibbling on nasturtiums to grazing on candied violets. And why not? They look beautiful and lend a unique floral flavors to salads, desserts, and anything in between.
How To: 5 Awesome Culinary Uses for Mason Jars
I have a confession: I hoard glass jars. I buy mason jars whenever I get the chance. When I finish a jar of pickles or mayonnaise, there's no way that glass jar is going in the recycling (thankfully, they're easy to de-stink). And when my sister gives me a basket of her homemade jams, she can forget about ever seeing those jars again.
How To: Mirror Your Android Notifications Over to Your Nexus Player
With our internet-connected devices growing in number by the year, it would be nice if they could somehow all be interconnected. This is becoming commonplace for our tablets, smartphones, and laptops, but our media streaming boxes still seem to be isolated in their own little worlds.
How To: Attack on Stack [Part 4]; Smash the Stack Visualization: Prologue to Exploitation Chronicles, GDB on the Battlefield.
Hi everyone! Last time we finished analyzing the assembly representation of our vulnerable piece of code (have I ever told you it is vulnerable?). This time we are going to introduce some fundaments about exploitation by demonstrating how to crash a program's execution. If that sounds lame, next time we will see how this crash can in fact be useful to control the program's execution, achieving remote code execution!
How To: 5 Reasons Why You Should Always Keep Stale Cereal
It happens to even the most avid cereal eaters: sooner or later you open a box, unfurl the crinkled plastic bag, and find that the cereal inside is stale. Maybe you forgot about it, maybe you ate it too slowly, or maybe you just found a new, better cereal and left it behind like Andy left Woody. Either way, the crunchy goodness is now stale, and you grab the box and walk to the trash can. Stop!
Food Tool Friday: Yes, You Can Compost (Even Without a Yard)
Food waste is a topic near and dear to my heart, but the truth is, no matter how dutiful we are about finding ways to double-down on food scraps, a lot of stuff goes into the trash needlessly.
How To: Make Herb-Infused Simple Syrup (& Why You Should)
The balanced and refreshing taste of a cocktail should always entice you into another sip. You'll know you're drinking something of quality when no specific ingredient, including booze, dominates its taste. A great cocktail can even mirror a great meal by exhibiting flavors like fruit, smoke, and herbs. And adding these flavors while making cocktails at home isn't hard at all.
News: Fish Sauce—The Ultimate Umami Bomb
I grew up eating Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food, but it wasn't until college that I experienced Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Once I started, I couldn't get enough of these cuisines. The dishes had an incredible richness and savor that I couldn't identify, but whatever it was, it made me want to keep eating.
How To: Want to Appear Smarter? Stop Using Impressive Vocabulary
We've all been there: facing a lengthy, complex word that ignores the phonics we were taught in elementary school, unsure of not only its pronunciation, but also its meaning. These words, from autochthonous to esquamulose, are both terrifying and impressive. After all, if someone knows how to use them—and even say them—they must be quite smart. Yet before you begin stuffing every email and presentation with verbose prose, you might want to reconsider what others perceive to be intelligent.
How To: Hide or Uninstall System Apps on Your Nexus Player for a Cleaner Home Screen
When Google announced its new Android TV platform, one of the features they advertised was a home screen that automatically reorganized your apps based on how frequently you used them. Unfortunately, this feature either didn't make the cut, or is still under development, since the home screen on the Nexus Player always remains static.
How To: Customize the Login Window Background on Your Mac
Macs, like pretty much all Apple products, are notorious for not having a highly customizable UI. They do this to keep a consistent look and feel across all of their devices, but I've grown bored of it over the years.
Weird Ingredient Wednesday: The Mushroom That Tastes Like Candy
Mushrooms are glorious: they're nutritional powerhouses, add meaty savor to just about any dish, and are cheap and plentiful (mostly). But just when you thought you knew best how to use edible fungi (in gravies, as portobello burgers, stewed and served over pasta, just to name a few uses), you learn something new: there's a mushroom out there that tastes like maple syrup. Yep, maple syrup.
Super Bowl Snacks: Gatorade-Infused Treats for Game Day
Gatorade and football go hand in hand, from player endorsements to the traditional Gatorade shower that coaches get at each Super Bowl. So, get in the game-day spirit with these Gatorade-infused drinks, desserts, and snacks. The good thing about Gatorade is that it comes in every color of the rainbow—so feel free to make these in your favorite team's colors.
How To: Why Keeping Good News to Yourself Is a Good Thing
Can't stand seeing your Facebook news feed full of peoples' good news and awesome accomplishments? Those oversharing friends are, in a sense, hampering their great news simply by sharing it. If you hold back and keep your accomplishments from friends, you might find even more success than if you'd shared with your support network.
How To: Make Cereal Milk—A Momofuku-Inspired Drink
If you have satisfying memories of slurping up the sweet milk left in the bowl after eating your cereal, then this cereal-infused milk will make you feel like a kid again. Although people have technically been enjoying cereal milk since the invention of cereal, it was recently made popular as a standalone drink by the playful and quirky Momofuku Milk Bar in New York City. Created by pastry chef Christina Tosi, it's a "recipe" that is both simple and brilliant. The original Momofuku brand cere...
How To: The Perfect Formula for Making Any Cocktail
Like many others, I like a good cocktail every now and then, and I've always been impressed when my cocktail enthusiast friends would come up with a new drink or even just remember how to concoct a Clover Club (FYI, it's made with gin, raspberry syrup, lemon, and egg white). There's a secret bartenders and craft cocktail aficionados know, though: It's all about math, the simplest and most intoxicating math. Pythagoras would be so proud.
Slow Down: Too Much Productivity Can Be a Bad Thing
Our workdays are typically filled with one thought: get as much completed as possible. Whether you face an inbox filled with tasks or just a project or two, both our bosses and our inner workhorses encourage us to knock out as many tasks as we can each day. But is being super-productive the best course of action for our minds and our employers?
News: The Many Wonders of Black Garlic
Garlic: almost every cuisine in the world considers it a staple, and for good reason. Its pungent flavor gives depth and character to food. Dishes made without it seem bland and forgettable. And on top of all that, it's been studied for its potential anti-cancer properties (and don't forget: it's been mythologized for warding off vampires).
How To: Clean Up Liquid Spills More Easily with Flour
Spills happen in the kitchen, and while every good cook knows to clean as you go, not every cook has an endless supply of cleaning materials. Besides, one spill can exhaust your entire stockpile of sponges, paper towels, and rags in a matter of minutes. Particularly egregious mishaps can make everything they touch feel sticky and gross.
How To: Use Scare Tactics to Increase Your Productivity & Accomplish More
Admit it: when nothing's at stake other than your boss's disapproval, you don't exactly feel the urge to get working. Finding the motivation to take on a task, whether at work or home, can be a constant struggle. Though working through your laziness might seem like the best course of action, a meaner method can make more of an impact on your productivity.
Halloween Food Hacks: How to Play the Withered Corpse Game
Creating a haunted house for Halloween was a big deal when I was growing up, and the neighborhood kids were always coming up with ways to try and out-do each other when it came to this frightful night. One beloved game was to blindfold the participants and play the Withered Corpse.
Nature's Food Hacks: How Honey's Magical Qualities Make It Indispensable
Only a handful of food products are impervious to spoilage—dried rice, salt, sugar—but even among those, honey is unique in that it remains edible without any preparation necessary. It's like this: if you came across honey in an Egyptian tomb, as archaeologists have, you could taste it and never guess it was thousands of years old.
Nature's Secret Code: How to Select Vegetables at Their Peak
There are a lot of people out there who don't like vegetables, but I would contend that that's because they haven't eaten any really good vegetables. I thought I hated tomatoes (okay, technically a fruit, but used mostly as a vegetable) until I ate some fresh from a garden. One bite of a juicy, ripe heirloom tomato made me realize that I love tomatoes—it's those bland, mealy supermarket tomatoes that I hate.
How To: Harness Bluetooth Communication Using Arduino
Since its creation, Arduino has been growing exponentially more popular as DIY enthusiasts and Makers alike realize its potential. As new versions of the device are released, many easy-to-use peripherals are showing up on the market also.
Nature's Secret Code: How to Pick Perfectly Ripe Fruit Every Time
Biting into a perfectly ripened piece of fruit is enough to convince you to give up baked goods and plant your own garden. The combination of flavor, juice, and sweetness in a ripe mango, apple, plum, or berry is the stuff of life itself.
Silence Is Golden: Why Keeping Quiet at Work Is Actually a Good Thing
Unless you're someone who's terrified of social situations, chances are you love to talk. But no matter how much you want to share you life story or take over the conversation, you shouldn't. Your socially awkward coworkers that keep their mouth shut might actually have a leg up on you at work, and here's why.
How To: Update Your Nexus 4 to Android L
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you're probably well aware that the Android world has been buzzing with excitement over the recently debuted Android L preview build that was released for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 at Google's I/O conference.
Slurping's Mandatory: Why Getting Messy with Ramen Makes It Taste Better
Sometimes when non-Asians go to ramen bars, they're mildly weirded out by watching the patrons eat. To the uninitiated, the eating behaviors can seem kind of extreme. Why are people hovering over their bowls like animals at a feeding trough? Why do they let endless lengths of noodles dangle from their maw as they slurp—very, very loudly—over their bowls of broth?
How To: Fully Control Your Galaxy S5 with Google Now Commands—No Root Needed
Google Now is a wonderfully powerful service—with its predictive cards and voice search, it serves as a great starting point for any searches you need done. In fact, Samsung liked it so much that they decided to build the "Okay, Google" hotword detection right into the Galaxy S5's stock launcher.
How To: Get Rid of Annoying Startup, Camera, & Low Battery Sounds on Your Samsung Galaxy S5
I have the AT&T version of the Galaxy S5, so every time I start my phone I get the pleasure of hearing AT&T's lovely jingle. Actually, that's sarcasm—I absolutely abhor this sound. I haven't had the chance to play around with a Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon variants of this phone, but I imagine they have some sort of equally annoying boot sound.
How To: Trick Your Brain into Remembering What You Read
If you have a hard time remembering what you've just read on your iPad or Kindle, try changing the font next time. The typeface you use to read books, newspapers, and online articles is either hurting or helping your memory, and you'll be surprised which ones are killing your brain cells.
How To: Hack Windows XP into Giving You 5 More Years of Free Support
Windows XP will always have a special place in my heart—it's the operating system I grew up on. It guided me through the glory days of AIM, Napster, and MySpace, but now it's dead. The OS that had been supported by Microsoft for twelve years officially lost its support on April 8th, 2014. Just like that, Microsoft has killed the beast, but for those of you who stubbornly refuse to cooperate, you can resurrect the dead. If you have Windows XP, this little known hack will get you further suppor...
How To: How Video Games Can Help You Increase Your Productivity at Work
Most days, getting through an eight-hour work shift is a struggle. There are a million places you'd rather be, and none of them include your desk. It's difficult to find the motivation to tackle the growing number of emails in your inbox when your mind is back at home, comfortable in front of your gaming system.
How To: The Single Best Way to Keep Your Facebook Friends List Clean & Tidy
Admit it: you haven't talked to more than 70 percent of your Facebook friends in the last year. Whether you barely know the names crowding your friends list, or have vague memories of high school Spanish class with them, Facebook friends are easy to find and difficult to get rid of.