IT General

This post contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Haunting of Hill House.

We all lived in haunted houses. Or, at the very least, every one of us knows the intimate horrors of family, whether through their haunting absence or the full-bodied specters that still stalk us today.

Each of our haunted houses is cursed by the eternal love a family promises. Their halls echo with the decay of words left unsaid, or reverberate with the angry word you can't ever be taken back. In the walls, you hear the desperate banging of a child who needs to break free of its stifling confines, or a mother who trying to keep her children locked away and safe inside forever.   Read more...

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Google is finally going on the record with its once-secret Project Dragonfly, a censorship-friendly search engine for the people of China.

Speaking at the Wired 25 Summit, Google CEO Sundar Pichai not only confirmed the existence of the project but also boasted about how well testing of the search engine was going.

SEE ALSO: Report: Google Dragonfly links phone numbers to search results

“It turns out we'll be able to serve well over 99 percent of the queries,” Pichai said of search results in the testing, pushing back on the controversy surrounding a product that must adhere to the Chinese-government's strict censorship laws. The Google CEO went on to give an example of how beneficial the service will be for the Chinese people, pointing out that current Chinese search products can return “fake” info for a query like “cancer treatments.” Read more...

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Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms aren’t glamorous, but they’re a necessary part of maintaining a safe home for your family.

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Robot engineering company Boston Dynamics released a video of its robot dog SpotMini dancing to "Uptown Funk" on Tuesday, and I'm just wondering: Is this supposed to make me feel better about our robot overlords?

Sure, it's still the early days of AI and robot innovations, and our robotic counterparts don't yet reign supreme—but I know it's coming — and this doesn't make me feel any better about it! 

Of course, I recognize that this video is meant to be humorous and adorable. But with every precise dance move I'm reminded that this sophisticated machine can be programmed to execute me as easily as it can be programmed to dance to Bruno Mars. An incredibly upsetting thought. Read more...

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Printer manufacturers hate third-party ink cartridges. They want you buying the expensive, official ones. Epson and HP have issued sneaky “updates” that break these cheaper cartridges, forcing you to buy the expensive ones.

Donald Trump hit a new low in his presidency — if that's even still possible — when he smashed out a tweet Tuesday morning referring to Stormy Daniels as "Horseface," confirming we are living in the worst possible timeline. 

“Federal Judge throws out Stormy Danials lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees.” @FoxNews Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

The tweet was in response to the Monday decision by a federal judge to dismiss Daniels' defamation suit against Trump. The claim lawsuit was filed when Trump tweeted that Daniels' claims of being intimidated to stay quiet about their alleged affair was a "total con job."  Read more...

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Did someone press the wrong key or something?

Phones around the country blew up Tuesday morning with strange push notifications from Twitter showing a seemingly random series of letters and numbers. And yes, even CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to fall victim to the spam.

SEE ALSO: European authorities to investigate Twitter over GDPR non-compliance

"We're seeing this issue too," he tweeted. "On it."

We’re seeing this issue too. On itpic.twitter.com/pzjd6248gJ

— jack (@jack) October 16, 2018

We reached out to Twitter in an attempt to determine just what is going on, but have yet to receive a response.  Read more...

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Microsoft just rolled out mouse and keyboard support for the Xbox One as to members of the Alpha Ring. This should arrive for everyone in November, 2018, as it’s part of the “1811” system update currently being tested.

The Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon’s workhorse e-reader, is starting to look like a premium device.

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Some of the best things are worth waiting for. 

That's especially true when it comes to food. After all, do you really want to know what pulled pork tastes like when it's been rushed? (Here's a hint: it's not very good.)

SEE ALSO: 9 of the best travel coffee mugs for your daily caffeine fix

Even simple dishes, like mac and cheese, can become a masterpiece when you take it slow and low. But to pull this off, you're gonna need a great slow cooker.

This Cuisinart 4-Quart 3-in-1 Multicooker is available at Walmart for $79.99, which is $49 off the original $129 price tag — and an excellent deal.

It features streamlined controls that can easily jump between brown/sauté, slow cook, and steaming at the push of a button. You'll also be able to preset the times and temperatures for each, plus there's a big and bright LCD display to make programming things so much easier. Read more...

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Despite a massive presence in China and Europe, Huawei is still seen as an also-ran by som…

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Nintendo launched the NES Classic in 2016, and then the SNES Classic last year, so it only makes sense that 2018 would bring us the N64 Classic Mini, right? Whether it’s true or not, we’re already excited.

Twitch streamers with noisy microphones will be happy to hear that OBS, the most popular live streaming program, has support for audio plugins in the form of VSTs. It’s a little-known feature hidden away behind a bunch of menus but can significantly improve your audio quality.

Losing weight is easy… according to every skinny person I’ve ever known. For most of us, it’s a lot harder.

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What if your tone deaf humming could actually sound... pretty good? That's the premise of a new experiment from Adobe that aims to turn your voice into music.

It's called Project Kazoo, and it could one day make soundtrack creation as simple as humming a quick tune.

SEE ALSO: Adobe finally has a full version of Photoshop for the iPad

The software, which is still in a prototype phase, uses a technology called voice conversion to translate dissonant sounds into music. Hum a couple bars into a microphone, and the software can turn the sound into that of the well-tuned instrument of your choice. It can even convert music from instrument into the sound of another — play a few notes on a recorder and the software will spit out the same notes on a saxophone. Read more...

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Whether you're drawn to the blockbuster movies, to Netflix, to old-school cartoons or to the comics that started it all, you know by now that it's Marvel's world and we're only living in it. It's tough, sometimes, to know that you're a teeny, tiny cog in a massive corporate entertainment empire, that no matter how much you tweet about Black Widow's character assassination you know you're still buying tickets for Avengers 4 in 2019.

We see you, and we hear you, emotionally exhausted Marvel fans. It's okay to love and hate your faves – in fact, we encourage it. Here are 10 gifts for the Marvel fan in your life who constantly switches between love and hate. Read more...

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Over the weekend, a critical bug was found in the PlayStation 4 messaging system that would cause systems to crash if a particular character was displayed. Sony has now fixed the issue.

If you have ever felt the shoulder ache brought on by too much gaming, have an indent permanently worn into your couch in your "spot," or have ever blown on a gaming cartridge to get it to work, then these deals are about to make you very happy.

SEE ALSO: Save nearly $3,000 on one of Samsung's best 4K TVs of 2018

There are a number of deals on video game consoles, such as save $20 on a Microsoft Xbox One S 1TB with Minecraft bundle from Walmart. Amazon is offering an Xbox One S 1TB Console with NBA 2K19 bundle for $299.99, plus the retailer will throw in an Echo Dot (3rd Gen) for free.

Of course, gamers need to stay alertKeurig's K525 Single Serve, K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker is on sale for $149.99. Hungry? The classic George Foreman Electric Grill is also on sale for just $29.99 and can help you cook up something fast. Read more...

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After changing your Windows 10 account picture to something with a little more personality, the three most recent images are stored as thumbnails in the Settings app. Here’s how to remove those old thumbnails if you’re sick of seeing them and want to start fresh.

Now that the Pixel 3 XL is out in the open, it was just a matter of time until someone disassembled it. 

The first to do so is the trusty iFixit, and while digging through the Pixel 3 XL's innards didn't result in any groundbreaking discoveries, there are still a few interesting changes compared to the last generation of Pixel phones. 

SEE ALSO: Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL review: Android's finest

First of those is the fact that Google has used a Samsung-made AMOLED screen in the new Pixel 3 XL. The company used LG-made screens in previous Pixels, and while both companies produce fine OLED screens, Samsung screens do tend to be a little better. Note that it's quite possible that Google is sourcing OLED screens from both companies.  Read more...

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