It may seem impossible to win an argument against an irrational person, but it turns out the tried-and-true techniques that hostage negotiators use against hostage-takers work surprisingly well in everyday situations. You may not ever deal with a real hostage situation personally, but life is full of negotiations with unreasonable people, and those conversations don't always have to end in rage or disappointment. The mental techniques that professional hostage negotiators use can help both pa...
If you're someone who frequently awakes in the middle of the night trembling in terror, you might want to consider swapping sides. According to research done at Yüzüncü Yil University, those who sleep on their left side experience more nightmares than those who sleep on their right.
Ever since the much-lauded effects of the Mediterranean diet became widely known, people have been buying olive oil by the gallon. A diet that prevents heart disease, is based on fresh, seasonal foods, and includes a tasty as hell fat like olive oil? Duh—that's a no-brainer.
It's easy to take the food we eat for granted, but the truth is, there are a lot of bizarre, wonderful, and just plain weird things about what we eat and drink, the effects it has on our bodies, and vice-versa. Read on to learn how bugs provide food dye, the Japanese grow square watermelons, and more.
Letting wine "breathe" isn't just something that happens in restaurants in '80s teen comedies with snooty maître d's. It's really a thing, and you should learn how to do it at home, because it'll make just about any wine—including Two-Buck Chuck—taste much, much better. It's also astonishingly easy, and despite what the Home Shopping Network may tell you, does not require buying extra gadgets.
You probably already know by now that a custom Android ROM can change your user experience and give you what feels like a new OS on your device, and there's no shortage of them out there to try out.
The airline is not your friend. It will do anything it can to gouge your dignity, time, and most of all, money. One of the biggest scams to get a few extra bucks out of you are those dreaded baggage fees. If the lines, security, "random" screenings, and unwanted fondling aren't bad enough, you have to pay them to check your bags (which, most of the time, is done poorly). Flying truly is the most inconvenient way to travel.
Deep in the crevasses of the Songshan mountain range, an Indian dhyana master established the first Shaolin Monastery in 477 AD, seeking to spread the relatively new teachings of Buddha at the time. This monastery then bred the Shaolin monks, who are now popular for their incredible feats with Chinese martial arts, particularly with Shaolin Kung Fu.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous characters in modern history, and has appeared in film more often than any other character. No less than 78 different actors have taken their turn at portraying the enigmatic deduction machine in various mediums, and each has brought their own foibles to the role. Some of the names may even surprise you: Tom Baker, John Cleese, Peter Cushing, Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Roger Moore, and even Leonard Nimoy.
The vast majority of people involved in Steampunk are interested in history but, like with science, there's something about history that we don't talk about very often: The holes.
Caller ID is great to have, but there are certain situations where you don't want the person you're calling to have your number. People who sometimes use their personal phones for work may not want clients knowing where to reach them outside of work, and anytime you're dealing with Craigslist, it's better to be safe than sorry.
There was recently a case that came to national attention where a gentleman was arrested at an airport for having a watch that looked like a bomb, among other things. As it came out, the watch was, in fact, not a bomb, and the man was just an artist who was probably trying to make a statement of some sort. Well, that message was lost amongst the hail of people shouting that either he had been stupid for bringing that watch on the plane and so deserved to be arrested, or that it's a free count...
As I said in this earlier post, there's no easy way to explain or define the Steampunk aesthetic. There are a large number of Steampunk tropes or "cues", as I call them, that bring to mind the feeling of Steampunk. These cues combine to push past the "not-Steampunk" threshold into firmly "Steampunk" territory.
Before I really get into this article, it's important to note that you do not need a Steampunk persona (or "steamsona") in order to be a Steampunk, or wear Steampunk clothes. Some people like to pretend to be a different person when dressed up in Steampunk clothing, but that is entirely optional, and only to be done if it appeals to you. That said, even if you aren't actually acting as your character, it may still be helpful to have one in mind when putting together an outfit. Personally, I'v...
Are you interested in beginning research of your family's history? I began this journey about 3 or 4 years ago and here is what I found. I've done almost ALL of my research online, and gotten farther, faster and more comprehensively than anyone else who has researched my family the old fashioned ways. This is the kind of thing that technology is made for. Here's how to use it.
If you're always taking blurry and underexposed pics with your mobile device, try using some of the tips below to turn your phone into a valuable photography asset. It doesn't matter if you have an iPhone, Android smartphone, or even a first-gen camera phone... you can still take some beautiful, winning photographs.
You can feel it in your bones. You may die if you don't get this phone. There's just one problem — the price. Suddenly, you come across what seems like manna from heaven. That very device, at a deeply discounted rate, can be yours.
Tech tends to move forward without looking back, but that doesn't mean new is always better. One feature that dominated mobile phones in the late '90s had made a comeback thanks to Apple, and you can take advantage of it on your iPhone when making calls.
Some of the new features in iOS 15 take some getting used to, and the biggest one of those is Safari's relocated search bar, aka address bar. There are more than a few reasons why it's a jarring change, but the good news is that you can return Safari's search bar to its pre-iOS 15 position at the top of the screen.
As we move toward the end of the year, the wheels of the augmented reality space continue to shift in major ways.
This was a busy week in the tech space. After everyone got over the major announcements of Apple's latest, we examined the metaverse through the lens of Hollywood, and then took a closer look at Facebook's first smartglasses.
We've reached the point in the trajectory of augmented reality's growth where AR advertising experiences are becoming commonplace tactics rather than rare experiments.
There's one big drawback when it comes to shooting video in HDR with Dolby Vision on the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max — it's not compatible with many apps and services. That means your video will be downgraded to SDR when sharing. That said, there are options to shoot, view, and edit iPhone-created Dolby Vision HDR videos that are available to use right now.
People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the outstanding feat of "magic" presented, we nevertheless hold fast to our survival-based grip on the truth: we just saw simply "can't be real."
One of my favorite perks of this job is the opportunity to try out all the big flagship phones each year. Whether it's rating their suitability for a particular use-case or just entering their specs into our comparison tool, we have to get our hands on all major phones released in the US. We pride ourselves on being fair in our reviews and roundups, but that doesn't mean we don't have preferences.
When Apple acquired the popular Workflow app in 2017, many were worried that it would either get replaced with something much worse, or just disappear entirely. Thankfully, Apple put these concerns to rest with the launch of Shortcuts. In iOS 13, Shortcuts is becoming more powerful than ever, providing functionality on the iPhone that the original Workflow team could only dream of.
You may not have thought of dorks as powerful, but with the right dorks, you can hack devices just by Googling the password to log in. Because Google is fantastic at indexing everything connected to the internet, it's possible to find files that are exposed accidentally and contain critical information for anyone to see.
If you've ever needed to prove you have remote access to a device, or simply want a way to convince someone their computer is haunted, SSH can be used to make a device begin to show signs of being possessed.
The Files app received a big update in iOS 13. Before, it was limited to local and cloud-based files, but now you can access data from external storage devices, including SD cards and USB drives. But before you try to connect your favorite card or drive to your iPhone, there are a few things you need to know.
Whenever the name Magic Leap comes up, the talk inevitably seems to turn to the company's big-name backers and "unicorn-level" amounts of cash poured into the venture. And if it's not that, observers tend to focus on the company's market strategy and overall prospects.
As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that).
With just a few taps, an Android phone can be weaponized into a covert hacking device capable of running tools such as Nmap, Nikto, and Netcat — all without rooting the device.
It's the icing on top of your cake (or whipped cream on top of your Android Pie) of despair. You may have not had the easiest time rooting your device, but you feel like you overcame all of the obstacles. Only now to discover that those very apps and mods you were rooting for still won't work — and the signs point to a lack of root access. Don't lose hope, because we have some tricks up our sleeve.
Cinemark may not be as big as AMC Theatres, but it also has a subscription if you want cheaper access to movie tickets. There aren't as many theaters, but if there's no AMC around you, there will likely be a Cinemark to save the day. But is the price of its Movie Club plan worth it?
Mystery is a tricky thing. Used correctly, it can give onlookers the impression that wondrous and perhaps valuable things are afoot. However, once the veil of suspension of disbelief is removed in any significant way, that same mystery can quickly turn into not just skepticism, but outright anger at what may have seemed like an attempt to dupe trusting onlookers.
The idea of a perfect phone is a myth. There are lots of pros when it comes to OnePlus devices, but there are also a few things that could be better. And even if there were a phone without flaw, there are still things that you might want to customize for personal preference. That's why we set out to find the very best tweaks for OnePlus phones, and to make it easier for you to apply them.
Cracking the password for WPA2 networks has been roughly the same for many years, but a newer attack requires less interaction and info than previous techniques and has the added advantage of being able to target access points with no one connected. The latest attack against the PMKID uses Hashcat to crack WPA passwords and allows hackers to find networks with weak passwords more easily.
People say that money makes the world go 'round. And it's no different in the world of augmented reality.
The hype train that left the station years ago has reached its first stop, and now we finally have access to the Magic Leap One, the device many have claimed would revolutionize the augmented reality space at launch. But is that really true?
MacOS isn't known as an ideal operating system for hacking without customization, but it includes native tools that allow easy control of the Wi-Fi radio for packet sniffing. Changing channels, scanning for access points, and even capturing packets all can be done from the command line. We'll use aliasing to set some simple commands for easy native packet capture on a macOS system.
