IT General

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for April 14's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: "Pull" synonym

• Green: Fitness training

• Blue: Planes

• Purple: Words that are also days

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Pull Using Force

• Green: Bit of Repetitive Training

• Blue: US-based Airlines

• Purple: Beginning with Day Abbreviations

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to Connections #307 is...

What is the answer to Connections today

• Pull Using Force: RIP, TEAR, WRENCH, YANK

• Bit of Repetitive Training: DRILL, EXERCISE, PRACTICE, ROUTINE

• US-based Airlines: AMERICAN, FRONTIER, SPIRIT, UNITED

• Beginning with Day Abbreviations: FRIAR, MONKEY, SUNDRY, WEDDING

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday's Connections.

As if the Windows 11 experience wasn't commodified enough, Microsoft has begun testing ads within the Start menu of Windows 11, a change rolling out to users within its Beta Channel in the US.

SEE ALSO: Windows 11 update fixes record number 147 flaws. This is why I switched to macOS.

Specifically, these ads will promote apps available in the Microsoft Store and appear in the Start menu's "Recommended" section. According to Microsoft's blog post, these targeted ads are only available to Windows Insiders and exclude commercially-managed devices.

While Microsoft has these ads enabled by default, users have the option to disable them via the Settings menu. And since the features are only being tested, user feedback could go a long way in influencing its future inclusion in official Windows 11 releases.

Embedding ads within the operating system is not new for Microsoft. Previous instances in Windows 10 included promotional content on the lock screen and the Start menu. Within Windows 11 specifically, Microsoft experimented with ads in File Explorer, which was later discontinued in beta versions thanks to less-than-favorable feedback.

Thus, this latest test serves as a continuation of Microsoft's exploration into integrating advertisements within its platform, indicating a potential shift towards a more ad-inclusive strategy in future iterations of Windows.

Does anyone want this? No. Is this the future we're headed toward? Probably!

The twinkling sounds of Hollywood won't be replaced by AI just yet.

SAG-AFTRA and major record labels Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Disney Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment have reached a tentative agreement on the use of AI to create imitations, or clones, of Hollywood artists. The deal is a successor to the previous SAG-AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Sound Recordings.

SEE ALSO: Humane Ai Pin reviews: Top 5 common complaints about the 'smartphone killer'

According to a statement from the union, the deal mandates that digital replicas of member artists must receive "clear and conspicuous" consent before their release, as well as offer a minimum compensation to the artist and publicize the specific details of the AI sound's use.

Retroactively covering a five-year period from 2021 to 2026, the union also won increased salary minimums, improvements to health and retirement benefits, and an increase in the percentage of streaming revenue covered by contributions.

Part of its larger contract campaign, SAG-AFTRA previously negotiated AI protections with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), winning similar rules for consent and compensation as "AI acting" becomes an ever more threatening reality. At the time of the contract vote, some SAG-AFTRA members were worried the protections didn't go far enough. The union has also backed California legislation intended to protect actors from digital replicas made without their consent.

Members will vote on ratifying the new music protections later this month.

"This agreement ensures that our members are protected," wrote Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA National executive director and chief negotiator. "SAG-AFTRA stands firm in the belief that while technology can enhance the creative process, the essence of music must always be rooted in genuine human expression and experience."

Elon Musk's AI chatbot can now "understand" images, including information-riddled diagrams and charts. Sorry, doesn't everyone use the platform once known as Twitter for multi-disciplinary research and optimizing their work flows??

Introduced as Grok-1.5V — Or Grok 1.5 "Vision," the company's "first-generation multimodal model" — the bot will be able to not only respond to your uploaded pictures and screenshots but also reason through complex documents, science diagrams, charts, screenshots, and photographs, the company says. Additionally, Grok-1.5V will gain "real-world spatial understanding" to better understand the physical world depicted in the images uploaded by its users.

"Advancing both our multimodal understanding and generation capabilities are important steps in building beneficial AGI that can understand the universe," the company wrote in its' announcement. "In the coming months, we anticipate to make significant improvements in both capabilities, across various modalities such as images, audio, and video."

SEE ALSO: If you're a paying X user, Elon Musk wants his Grok AI to write your posts for you, report says

Example use cases include translating a diagram into Python code, turning a child's drawing into a bedroom story, pinpointing the largest object among a group of many, and telling a driver if they have enough space to drive around an obstacle.

Grok-1.5V is released along with xAI's RealWorldQA, an image and prompt dataset designed to test other GenAI models against Grok's real world reasoning.

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Competition is the least of Grok's worries, however. Despite xAI's continued investment, Grok has yet to stick with early users and staff — a new report alleges its own developers struggle to use the slow xAI API. That same report, published by Fortune this week, highlighted X employee concerns about Musk suggesting Grok write paid user's posts for them, despite warnings from developers and staff. Last week, Grok came under fire for generating fake news headlines from an alternate reality where Iran had assailed Tel Aviv with a military arsenal — not its first time.

While GenAI chatbots hallucinating realities and generating fake news is par for the course, Grok's gaffe is indicative of yet another site wide issue. The bot, a par for the course response to ChatGPT from Musk, is integrating into a platform that has slowly whittled away at its defenses against AI gone bad. Combined with X's all around poor reputation for moderation and the CEO's own refusal to address misinformation in aid of the site's "citizen journalists," Grok occupies a precarious spot in the platform's besieged information ecosystem.

Grok-1.5V will be available to early testers and select users soon.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: See hints and answers for April 13 SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for April 13

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Friday, April 12, 2024:

Across"Wow, what are the ___?"

• The answer is Odds.

Trippy fungus, informally

• The answer is Shroom.

Kind of comedy at a comedy club

• The answer is Standup.

Continuously remind

• The answer is Nag.

The Diamondbacks, on scoreboards

• The answer is Ari.

White covering on a mountain

• The answer is Snowcap.

Yoga teacher's instruction

• The answer is Inhale.

Roughly half of babies, to their parents

• The answer is Sons.

DownShohei ___, baseball player who signed the biggest contract in pro sports history (10 years, $700 million)

The answer is Ohtani.

Creatures symbolized on mah-jongg tiles

• The answer is Dragons.

Actor Cheadle

• The answer is Don.

Coca-Cola container

• The answer is Soda can.

Tax form IDs, for short

• The answer is SNSS.

Paintings on city buildings

• The answer is Murals.

Plumber's tube

• The answer is Pipe.

One of journalism's "five W's"

• The answer is Who.

Next year, NASA will blast astronauts back to the moon. This is their 21st-century ride.

The European Space Agency — which helped build the Orion spacecraft that will carry four passengers — just posted an image of the tall vehicle before it was transferred to a test chamber for exposure to extreme, space-like environs.

"At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, the Orion vehicle that will be used for Artemis II is getting ready for this first mission to bring humans around the Moon and back in over 50 years," ESA wrote.

SEE ALSO: The U.S. is exploring a railroad for the moon. It has a good reason.

The forthcoming Artemis II mission will see astronauts launch into space attached to NASA's towering Space Launch System rocket, or SLS — a rocket more powerful than the Saturn V that first took astronauts to the moon. They'll loop around the moon, but won't land on it, before burning engines back to Earth and making a 5,000-degree plummet through the atmosphere. If the mission succeeds, it will pave the way for Artemis III in September 2026, which will touch down on the dusty lunar surface. They'll stay for about a week.

The Orion craft below comprises four parts stacked together:

- Crew module: Up top is the crew module, where astronauts will live on their space flight.

- Crew module adapter: This segment connects the crew module to the crucial component below, the European Service Module.

- Service Module: ESA calls this the "powerhouse of Orion." It provides electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air, and water, the agency explained.

- Spacecraft adaptor: At bottom, this conical segment connects Orion to the powerful SLS rocket.

The stacked Orion vehicle. At bottom are engineers, for size reference. Credit: NASA / A. Stevenson Tweet may have been deleted

NASA had previously expected Artemis II to launch in later 2024, but moved the flight back to September 2025 to address a few problems. Because there is life aboard, the agency — which knows all too well how a flight mishap can result in tragedy — values safety over expediency.

"Crew safety is and will remain our number one priority," Amit Kshatriya, NASA's deputy associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development, said in an agency statement earlier this year.

Of particular concern is the unexpected damage to Orion's heat shield that occurred during the uncrewed Artemis I flight. Amid the hot descent through Earth's atmosphere, some small pieces of the shield came off, as opposed to normal erosion from the intense friction and heat. "Teams have taken a methodical approach to understand the issue, including extensive sampling of the heat shield, testing, and review of data from sensors and imagery," NASA explained.

As looming Artemis missions aboard Orion take flight, NASA's aims are distinctly different than that of the legendary Apollo missions of over 50 years ago. This time, NASA will establish a permanent presence on and around the moon. And for the first time, astronauts will venture into the lunar south pole, a place scientists think contains bounties of water ice — a critical resource for fuel and water in any moon colony.

Many people associate NASA with exploring new worlds in space, but few know it's also finding new microscopic ecosystems right here.

Years ago, Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a scientist who decontaminates spacecraft bound for Mars, found a curious microorganism on the end of his swab. The bacteria, which he named bacillus pumilus, was so resilient, the usual cleaning solutions — ultraviolet light and peroxide — wouldn't kill it.

That discovery led to sending a specimen to the International Space Station, where astronauts hung it outside the laboratory 250 miles above Earth to see what would happen. When the sample came back, many of the spores were still alive, even after 18 months of exposure to cosmic radiation.

The research was shelved, and a sample of the microbe literally went into a freezer. But 25 years after its first detection, a Massachusetts-based company is using it to make a new ingredient for sunscreen, leveraging its UV resistance.

SEE ALSO: Your next skin cream may come from NASA's outer space science Tweet may have been deleted

The story of spaceship to skincare has twists and turns and an unusual cast of characters. It starts with Kyle Landry, who began his career in food science. Landry developed an expertise in extremophiles — organisms that can live in the harshest Earth environments — and even discovered a new species of fungus.

Landry had been focused on finding new and unique enzymes from certain funguses that grow at high temperatures. When added to foods, these ingredients help produce umami flavors.

David Sinclair, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, took notice of Landry's work and offered him a postdoctoral position at his lab. Sinclair, whose research centers on why humans age and how to slow its effects, was interested in understanding how extremophiles can live such long lives and repair themselves in hostile environments.

From there, Landry started working for Liberty Biosecurity, a company in the biodefense sector co-founded by Sinclair, trying to neutralize anthrax and the Black Plague with extremophile enzymes that are good at breaking down organic material.

Kasthuri Venkateswaran discovered bacillus pumilus on a spacecraft in a NASA cleanroom in 1999. Credit: NASA

The contractor eventually started working with NASA to develop compounds that could protect the human genome from the harmful effects of cosmic radiation.

"It's not the rockets that are limiting us from going to Mars," Landry said. "It's our own biology to withstand nonstop radiation for six months."

The partnership put Landry at the right place at the right time to learn about NASA's treasure trove of extremophiles, ripe for more research and commercialization. At the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists have discovered hundreds of these hardy little lifeforms while trying to clean spacecraft before the hardware leaves the planet. The United States has signed an international treaty to avoid introducing contaminants to extraterrestrial environments.

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists have discovered hundreds of these hardy little lifeforms while trying to clean spacecraft before the hardware goes to other worlds. Credit: NASA

To comply, NASA has sought to sanitize Mars rovers at a threshold of no more than 300,000 bacterial spores on any surface area exposed to the Martian environment. That process has revealed plenty of microbes that can survive high temperatures, low nutrients, and a lack of moisture.

Venkateswaran has been collecting the specimens to have a record of the types of so-called "dead bug bodies" that could remain on NASA equipment. That way, if a rover shovel digs up some Martian dirt and puts it in a test tube, scientists have an idea of whether potential evidence of a primitive organism is an alien or just a hitchhiker from Earth. Regardless of NASA's best efforts, there's no full-proof way to make a spacecraft spotless, a point John Grunsfeld, NASA's former chief scientist, drove home in 2015.

"We know there’s life on Mars already because we sent it there,” he said then.

Twenty-five years after the first detection of a strain of bacteria, a Massachusetts-based company is using it to make a new ingredient for sunscreen, leveraging its UV resistance. Credit: Delavie Sciences

Venkateswaran's other reason for saving extremophile samples is to learn how to improve cleaning methods. The strain of bacillus pumilus, for example, was used as a final witness for the eradication of everything else in that cleanroom, said Dan Lockney, executive of NASA’s technology transfer program.

"If that bacteria was eliminated," he said, "they determined that that cleanroom was as sanitized as possible."

"If that bacteria was eliminated they determined that that cleanroom was as sanitized as possible."

Now for how the bacteria ended up in the sunscreen business.

Delavie Sciences has launched its own brand of skincare products, Aeonia, using its version of bacillus lysate. Credit: Delavie Sciences

NASA urged Landry to take a look at its catalog of patented organisms. When he saw this one's potential for absorbing UV radiation, he licensed it, then spent the next two years figuring out how to make an extract from the bacteria. (The proprietary product itself, known as bacillus lysate, doesn't contain any live bacteria.)

"We endeavor to make sure all the things that we develop for these space missions also find their way into consumer goods and industrial applications and manufacturing processes and into hospitals and grocery stores," Lockney said.

Seeing that a biodefense company doesn't have a place in cosmetics, Landry formed a spinoff company, called Delavie Sciences, which now makes the SPF booster in 15,000 liter reactors and sells it in bulk quantities to sunscreen manufacturers.

By now it's pretty much common knowledge that sunscreen is the best way to reduce skin damage from the sun. Too much UV exposure can cause cancer and age-related skin problems, like wrinkles and spots.

Delavie Sciences CEO Kyle Landry goes on oil rigs and in abandoned gold mines to find new biology that could become the next big thing in extremophiles. Credit: Kyle Landry

Sunscreens are rated with SPF, short for Solar Protection Factor, which measures how much UV radiation is necessary to penetrate the barrier to burn. The use of Delavie Sciences' bacillus lysate, which absorbs UV, increased an SPF 30 sunscreen by 22 to 33 percent, a range based on different amounts tested, according to a study published in the journal Cosmetics in October 2023.

Delavie Sciences has also launched its own brand of skincare products, called Aeonia, using its version of bacillus lysate for another application. The ingredient seems to activate skin cells' own production of hyaluronic acid, which has been shown to help grow collagen and elastin.

Like Willy Wonka looking for the next exotic chocolate flavor, Landry now goes on oil rigs and in abandoned gold mines hunting for new biology that could become the next big thing in extremophiles. But he emphasizes that his business wouldn't have been possible without NASA.

"People think NASA is just rockets and satellites and freeze-dried ice cream," he said. "There's so much more that comes to us from NASA that goes under the radar."

I'll be the first person to tell someone to just grow up and buy a Dyson rather than settle for a cheaper cordless vacuum. Yes, the Dyson purchase probably requires extra saving up, and yes, I acknowledge that a vacuum costing the same or more than a month's rent puts it in the "overpriced" category. But if you can swing it, I think a Dyson stick vacuum is worth it.

And this is simply because my Dyson does such a good job that it makes me prefer doing the chore manually. If a robot vacuum does a crappy job of cleaning a hard floor, my Dyson V12 Detect Slim will snitch immediately, using its green laser to highlight any leftover hairs or specks that a robot vacuum missed. It's still clutch to be able to rely on a robot vacuum for surface-level jobs in a pinch, but for better or for worse, my ultimate robot vacuum test is how it stands up against my Dyson.

So what better robot vacuum to compete with my beloved Dyson stick vacuum than a Dyson robot vacuum? I went into my experience with Dyson's new 360 Vis Nav with high expectations, despite already knowing about Dyson's odd choice to omit crucial features like mopping and self-emptying. Here's how it went.

Dyson rarely releases robot vacuums, so this was huge

The 360 Vis Nav initially sold out at Dyson's website within hours of release on March 19. Stock subsequently dwindled completely at other retailers like Amazon and Best Buy within the following days. That's not surprising — demand for a Dyson robot vacuum has been bubbling since 2016, which is the last time Dyson released a robot vacuum in the U.S. And it was a flop.

Eight years later, the premise of a Dyson robot vacuum feels much more auspicious. Dyson has perfected its cyclonic suction power in the realm of upright cordless vacuums, so it should have no problem converting that expertise to robot form, right?

SEE ALSO: We tested the best Dyson Airwrap dupes under $300 — including the Shark FlexStyle

The 360 Vis Nav came out with the promise of being the world's most powerful robot vacuum, aided by a flat edge and a genius extending side duct for better corner cleaning than what a round robot vacuum can manage. A D-shaped robot vacuum is unique, but isn't something we've never seen before. And it's definitely not the most... interesting choice Dyson made with this physical design. Let's start there.

This physical design will clash with a lot of home decor

You can tell a Dyson vacuum is a Dyson vacuum just by looking at it. The metallic gray bodies, bold pops of color, and chunky industrial details are pretty recognizable to anyone who has shopped for a vacuum before.

And I've never minded that boldness. My V12 Detect Slim, which is gray with a weird orange tentacle-looking piece on the dust bin and a purple filter cap, is a flex mounted on the wall in my kitchen.

That being said, Dyson should have reined in its signature design with the 360 Vis Nav, because it's kind of an eyesore. Rather than sticking to graphite, the entire body is bright indigo. That is topped off with an exterior circular dustbin that was probably meant to give cool exposed gear vibes, but more so resembles a curled-up centipede.

Something about the 360 Vis Nav and the Fleetwood Mac record just don't vibe. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable You can choose a cleaning mode on the touchscreen, but that's about it. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

I guess the polarizing design choice might be appealing to ultra-modern maximalists, but given my guests' puzzled reactions when they see the 360 Vis Nav in my living room, it's not exactly screaming practical.

Despite the fact that robot vacuums are becoming increasingly common, they can still feel a bit out of place — maybe too futuristic — in a lot of homes. Other brands have caught onto the consumer's preference for chicness and subtly, with iRobot going as far as to make its Roomba Combo j9+ dock double as a wooden top side table.

SEE ALSO: Roomba models, explained: The 2024 guide to deciding which Roomba to buy

So the dust bin isn't concealed on the underside or back like it traditionally is on standalone robot vacuums. Yes, this means that the wad of gray dust will be facing outward until it's time to empty. You'd be off the hook from that for weeks and weeks had Dyson included a self-empty dock, but at least the 360 Vis Nav's 0.15-gallon dust bin is larger than most.

You hold the dustbin like a purse and click it open via the handle. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

And granted, if a robot vacuum is going to require manual emptying, Dyson's system is definitely the mildest pain in the ass. Just pull up the handle and un-click the bin while the vac is charging, hold it over a trash can, and push the red button. The door swings open downward and everything falls directly in the trash.

Speaking of questionable design choices, not even the religious RuPaul's Drag Race stan in me can justify the black and white checkered flags stuck to the 360 Vis Nav's dock. This thin panel needs to be attached in order for the vac to map correctly and find its way back. Without it, the 360 Vis Nav looks like me trying to parallel park. No other premium robot vacuums I've tested require obnoxious stickers to drive themselves. Just saying.

Smart mapping is accurate, but customizing zones is frustrating

A small LCD touchscreen and a small transparent sphere known as the Eye sit atop the 360 Vis Nav. You use the touchscreen during setup when connecting to the WiFi, and I appreciate that all of the steps are laid out in very simple terms. You can also use the touchscreen to select from four cleaning modes (which you can also do on the app): auto, boost, quiet, and quick. They're pretty self-explanatory.

The other piece of tech on top, the Dyson Eye, replaces the circular LiDAR tower that is seen on a lot of competing robot vacuums. The Eye has a 360-degree view of its surroundings and, with the help of 26 different sensors, is said to analyze up to 10,000 data points a second, allowing it to remember your home's layout and navigate around large obstacles like furniture and walls.

Tight-knit table legs or kitchen chair legs did not trip the 360 Vis Nav up once. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable The 360 Vis Nav knew to not use its side suction around these defenseless blanket tassels. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The 360 Vis Nav's mapping run proved to be quite accurate the first time around, at least when assessing the general perimeter of the floor plan. (Dividing rooms in the app wasn't as seamless.) After each cleaning session, the MyDyson app offers what looks like a heat map version of its smart map, showing where it found the most dust. It'll work harder in those areas the next time you start a full home cleaning.

Navigation-wise, the 360 Vis Nav is nimble when dealing with tricky furniture. It never got stuck once in my apartment, and was able to carve tightly around our acorn-shaped coffee table. I'm not over the lack of small obstacle avoidance technology, though. And I elaborate on these gripes in the downsides section of this review.

Suction power: Great on carpet, rough around the edges (literally)

Dyson alleges that the 360 Vis Nav has double the suction power of any robot vacuum. That's honestly not totally unbelievable coming from a longstanding powerhouse like Dyson, but it is tricky to compare suction power on paper when other robot vacuums measure that in Pascals (Pa) while Dyson measures in Air Watts (AW).

SEE ALSO: Spring cleaning starter kit: 8 products to cover all your bases

Dyson does scale its robot vacuum's motor the same way it does its cordless vacuums, making contextualizing suction power a little more tangible. The 360 Vis Nav houses a proprietary Hyperdymium motor that spins at up 110,000 RPM — faster than all cordless Dyson vacuums that retail for more than $649.99. However, that motor only creates suction up to 65 AW of suction power, which is nearly half of the suction power pumped out by Dyson's cheapest cordless vacuum, the V8, which can often be found on sale between $300 and $350. As a reminder, the 360 Vis Nav costs $1,119.99.

Success stories first: The Dyson 360 Vis Nav is pretty stellar on carpet and rugs. It aced any debris test I threw at it, audibly boosting suction (in auto mode) when it came across a mess. These three piles of crushed tortilla chips, soil, and cat fur were totally cleared before the 360 Vis Nav went back to its dock, even when I was skeptical after it missed some pieces on the first pass.

Crumbs, dirt, pet hair — the usual. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable The 360 Vis Nav sensed that debris was left and went back to get these pieces. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The effectiveness is probably a combination of sheer suction power and the triple-action brush roll. It's basically a spitting image of the one on Dyson's Digital Motorbar cleaning head for its cordless vacuums, combining soft nylon, stiff bristles, and anti-static carbon fiber strands that dig into carpet pile, attract debris like velcro, and suck it out.

In terms of battery life, Dyson alleges that the 360 Vis Nav can run for 65 minutes. I was able to send the Dyson out to cover two rooms that took just under half an hour each, and it had enough juice for both on one charge. However, I can see this run time dwindling significantly if more of the floor is carpet or needs to be cleaned in boost mode.

Hard floors were more of a struggle than carpet, which is surprising because it's usually the other way around for robot vacuums.

My bathroom is one place where I need a robot vacuum to reliably clean on a daily basis. It's where one of my cats' litter boxes is, and is where my hair sheds the most — and is the only place in the apartment where I always walk barefoot. So tell me why, on multiple occasions, I walked in there after a 360 Vis Nav run to see the back third of the floor still scattered with kitty litter and long hairs. Either the 360 Vis Nav's suction did virtually nothing, or it didn't attempt to go back there at all. Considering a $299 Shark robot vacuum successfully came to the rescue afterwards, neither of those excuses will fly.

Similarly, the laser on my Dyson V12 Detect Slim showed a decent amount of dust still remaining in front of the litter box in the kitchen after the 360 Vis Nav cleaned there.

Yes, this is *after* the 360 Vis Nav came through. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable Dyson's hyped edge cleaning was a huge letdown

Aside from rocking a flat edge to scoot into 90-degree angles better than a round vacuum, the 360 Vis Nav is equipped with side ducts that extend when cleaning along a wall. These target suction power to the side of the vacuum that the wall is on, replacing the traditional flimsy spinning side brushes that operate on mere hope. This was going to be huge if true: Robot vacuums universally struggle to grab the dust bunnies that blew into the corner behind the couch or the crumbs pushed up against cabinets or appliances.

I thought this was a first pass blunder, but no, it was left like this. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable Once again, the Dyson V12 Detect Slim saved the day. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Unfortunately, the 360 Vis Nav fell short of edge-pectations. During my spill-rice-on-purpose challenge, the vac did an OK (just OK) job at clearing the middle of the floor, but hardly grabbed any of the rice hanging out under the lip of the cabinets.

Downsides: Dyson skipped crucial features, then charged too much

My list of cons of the 360 Vis Nav will be pretty straightforward — not because Dyson got very few things wrong, but because there's actually not a ton of features to evaluate. No self-emptying, no mopping, no small obstacle avoidance. I'll cover those in the section exploring the competition, but first, I want to touch on the features that are present, but disappointing.

There's a lot of misplaced innovation going on here. Rather than ensuring some basic features that every high-end robot vacuum should have, Dyson put its energy into things like a touchscreen. That would have been cool if you could do anything more proactive than select the cleaning mode through it.

Similarly, I've already gone off about how the 360 Vis Nav doesn't even reliably clean edges — the one thing it was supposed to excel at.

Spot cleaning is another huge miss. Sometimes, scheduling a cleaning for one room in particular isn't specific enough. Sometimes, you just need to directly tackle the few feet surrounding the kitchen counter, or the front door, or the litter box. If the ability to physically pick the vacuum up, plop it in the spot that needs attention, and press a button on the top to make it go isn't an option, I'll settle for drawing a zone in the app.

JUST LET ME PINCH THE DIVIDER EASILY, I BEG YOU. Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable

The MyDyson app doesn't differentiate between rooms and zones, despite referring to the entire room-labeling process as "zoning." The most intuitive robot vacuum apps allow you to drag a rectangle onto whatever area of the map you desire for a one-time cleaning, no questions asked.

But if you want to spot clean with the 360 Vis Nav, you have to put dividers up just like you would when separating a bedroom from the hallway. That'd be fine if the dividers were easy to set up with your finger. But they barely respond to pinching or dragging, and then get mad at you for not being arranged correctly. This once again had me sending a $299 robot vacuum to cover those spontaneous spots.

The competition

Dyson's choice to simply omit features like self-emptying and mopping is unforgivable at this price point. These "advanced" autonomy features may have been considered premium in 2020, but have become accessible at any price point in the past two years. You can easily score a robot vacuum that empties itself and mops for less than $500 even without a sale.

The competing robot vacuums in the same $1,000+ pricing tier are actually going far past just automatic emptying or just mopping, too. The theme of the robot vacuums announced at CES 2024 was fully self-sufficient mopping, including automatic washing and drying of the mopping pads. Considering Dyson just released a mopping version of one of its best cordless vacuums in Sept. 2024, it's surprising that its robot vacuum ignores mopping completely.

SEE ALSO: The Roomba Combo j7+ is pretty good at cleaning and really good at not eating phone chargers

It's also impossible not to compare the 360 Vis Nav to Dyson's own stick vacuum lineup, especially when the 360 Vis Nav costs more than the most expensive cordless Dyson, the $1,049 Gen5 Outsize. That vac more than doubles the suction power and dustbin capacity of the 360 Vis Nav, plus can be trusted to get into corners. Yes, you'll be the one doing the work, but it's actually fun when you're guided by a game-changing laser that highlights exactly where dust and debris are. You already know I back the V12 Detect Slim, which can often be snagged for less than $500.

Is the Dyson 360 Vis Nav worth it?

Nope. And that's not an "unless you have the budget to spend over $1,000 on a robot vacuum" nope. It's just a hard nope.

Similarly-priced competitors empty themselves, mop, wash and dry their own mopping pads, and can detect small obstacles like cords, pet waste, and socks. The 360 Vis Nav doesn't do any of that, and doesn't even ace edges, the main thing it claimed to be good at.

And even if the 360 Vis Nav wasn't drowning in competition from other robot vacuums, it would still lose to its number one enemy: its own cordless stick vacuums.

Opens in a new window Credit: Dyson Dyson 360 Vis Nav $1,199.99 at Dyson
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If you want to get in sync with your partner or belong to a highly organized friend group, and wondering how to share your Google Calendar, you've come to the right place.

Sharing your Google Calendar with someone means they can see your schedule without any tedious back-and-forth, which is a lifesaver for busy people. Before you enter into this intimate step in a relationship, make sure you know the different levels of access.

If you give someone full access to your calendar, they can respond to invitations, create and edit events shared with you, and even share your calendar with someone else or delete events. If this sounds like giving someone way too much trust, you can set different access permissions for specific people.

With that out of the way, let's dive in.

Total Time

• Less than 5 minutes

What You Need

• Your computer and internet access

Step 1: Go to Google Calendar on your computer

This isn't possible on the mobile Google Calendar app, so make sure you're using Google Calendar on desktop.

Step 2: Go to "My calendars"

You can find this section on the lefthand side of the page. Expand your calendars by clicking the down arrow to find the calendar you want to share.

Credit: Screenshot: Google

Step 3: Hover over the calendar you want to share

When you hover over the calendar you want to share, you'll see the three vertical dots icon next to the name of the calendar. Click on this icon and select "Settings and sharing."

Credit: Screenshot: Google

Step 4: Find the "Share with specific people" section

Scroll to the bottom of the settings page that says "Share with specific people or groups." Then click "Add people."

Credit: Screenshot: Google

Step 5: Add the person's email address

When you click "Add people" a pop-up will prompt you to add who you want to share your calendar with. Start typing their name if they're already within your contacts or enter their email address manually. Either way this box will populate with their email address. Note: This is the part where you can customize access permissions. The list goes from most restricted to least restricted, so the last permissions choice gives the users full access (creating, deleting, editing events, etc.)

Credit: Screenshot: Google / Mashable

Step 6: Hit send

Once you've chosen your access permissions, hit "Send." The user will receive an email with a link to confirm access to your calendar.

Credit: Screenshot: Google

Step 7: Make your Google Calendar public or delete access

To make your Google Calendar accessible to anyone with the link, check the box "Make available to public" under the "Access permissions for events." From here, you can copy the link to your calendar on your clipboard. To remove access, go back to the "Share with specific people or groups" section and click the "X" next to the user.

Credit: Screenshot: Google

TL;DR: Through April 16, upgrade your laptop’s OS with Microsoft Windows 11 Pro, price-dropped to $31.99 with code ENJOY20.

If your current laptop is starting to lag or underperform, it may be time to update your OS. Microsoft Windows 11 Pro was designed to help you increase productivity and provide advanced management tools for remote work.

With multi-factor authentication and support for certificate-based authentication, Windows Hello for Business has your back for all professional tasks. The user-friendly interface offers a more pleasurable user experience, so you can simultaneously navigate multiple programs, operating systems, and apps at once. Through April 16, you can get lifetime access to Windows 11 Pro for just $31.99 with coupon code ENJOY20.

Windows 11 automatically receives updates and exclusive features, including Windows Copilot, an AI assistant to help with tasks like changing settings, launching playlists, summarizing documents, and more. Check out snap layouts, improved voice typing, and the advanced search engine for making everyday assignments easier to execute.

Creatives will love the updated Paint app in Windows 11 with improved zooming, enhanced imaging capabilities, support for layers, AI-powered background removal, generative content creation, and transparent PNG support. Take your art to the next level, there are no limitations to the magic you can create.

Whether you’re a business professional, student, or at-home user, this versatile OS offers features that can benefit everyone. You’ll love the enhanced security, BitLocker encryption, improved performance, and customizable options this software has to offer.

Get Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for only $31.99 (reg. $199) with code ENJOY20 until April 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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$199.00 Save $167.01 with code ENJOY20 Get Deal

TL;DR: Through April 16, save on Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 along with courses on Python, C++, and ChatGPT, all for $51.99 with code ENJOY20. 

There's more to learning to code than picking a language and running with it. You may also have to find an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that helps you work on your projects. It's the place where you actually write your code, and some of them have tools built in to streamline the process. 

Beginner programmers can get lifetime access to a comprehensive IDE and thorough courses training you on coding basics when you get the Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 and Learn to Code bundle on sale for $51.99. That sale only lasts until April 16 though. 

What is Visual Studio Pro?

Visual Studio Professional 2022 is a development environment that could help to enhance your productivity while you're working on large, complex, or collaborative projects. This 64-bit IDE lets developers write code for mobile or desktop apps with .NET MAUI, craft responsive web UIs in C# using Blazor, and debug and test their code using .NET and C++ apps in Linux.

One of the major highlights of Visual Studio Pro is IntelliCode, which is like contextual auto-complete for developers. That means your IDE is constantly analyzing your code, making suggestions, and offering insights to help you complete single lines or whole blocks. Make sure to check the CodeLens to see recent changes, authors, tests, and commit history if you're working in a group. 

And if you're just learning how to program, make sure to check out the intro coding courses included in this bundle. Get the basics of Python 3, C++, and more taught by industry pros like John Purcell, a full-time private software trainer based out of Hungary. 

Learn to code

Don't lose your chance to learn how to code and get a place to do it. 

Get the Microsoft Visual Studio Pro 2022 and Premium Learn to Code bundle for $51.99 until April 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT when you use code ENJOY20. 

StackSocial prices subject to change. 

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2022 + The 2024 Premium Learn to Code Certification Bundle $51.99 at the Mashable Shop
$1,999.00 Save $1,947.01 with code ENJOY20 Get Deal

TL;DR: Through April 16, a lifetime subscription to 1TB of cloud storage with Koofr is on sale for $127.99 (reg. $810) with code ENJOY20.

Nowadays, it seems we never have quite enough storage for all of our data. Through April 16, this lifetime subscription to Koofr Cloud Storage with 1TB of space is just $127.99 with code ENJOY20, so you can store documents, photos, media, etc.  

Koofr is designed to be user-friendly and can be accessed from multiple devices. It allows you to pull files from tablets, phones, or computers. The advanced file management feature gives users more control and flexibility in organizing files and a simple tool to clear duplicates.

Koofr cloud storage services promise to encrypt your data during rest and transfer, and won't track you or expose your personal information. The extra security measures allow for smooth integration with external cloud accounts like Dropbox, Amazon, Google Drive, and OneDrive, while making it seamless to access files across multiple platforms.

Make a one-time purchase and the Koofr lifetime subscription service is accessible for life. If you can’t wrap your head around the enormity of this deal, 1TB can store 250,000 12MP photos, 500 hours of HD video, or 6.5 million document pages such as PDFs. 

Get a lifetime subscription to 1TB of Koofr Cloud Storage for only $127.99 (reg. $810) with code ENJOY20 until April 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT. 

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: KOOFR Koofr Cloud Storage: Lifetime Subscription (1TB) $127.99 at the Mashable Shop
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TL;DR: Through April 16, make spring cleaning manageable with the JASHEN V18 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner for only $135.99 with code ENJOY20. 

Spring cleaning isn't just a single day where you suddenly make your home feel fresh and clean. It's a process that keeps going because spring is messy. Between tracked-in dirt, lunchtime spills, pet messes, and kitchen catastrophes, there's a lot of cleaning to do, but you might only need one tool to do it. 

The JASHEN V18 Vacuum Cleaner is a powerful, efficient cleaning device that works on hard floors or carpets, and it's totally wireless. This powerful cordless vacuum is also super quiet and on sale but not for long. For a few days more through April 16, you can get the JASHEN V18 for only $135.99 with code ENJOY20. 

Includes accessories and a wall-mounted charger

This versatile vacuum doesn't just stick to the carpet. Roll from the soft floor of the living room into the cool tile of the kitchen without skipping a beat when you're using this lightweight whole-house cleaner. Like any cordless vacuum, the V18 has limited battery life, but the 2,500mAh battery capacity means it could run for up to 40 minutes of uninterrupted cleaning. That's a lot of time to cover some real distance, especially when there's no cable to trip over. Plus, this one comes with all sorts of useful accessories like the upholstery tool, crevice nozzle, two-in-1 dusting brush, and more. 

When it's time to recharge, just pop it on the wall-mounted charger. That keeps it out of the way and ready to go next time a mess needs a quick cleanup. 

Clean up springtime messes

Whether it's mud in the kitchen or grass on the carpet, you could turn a messy season into your own spring dreams if you get the right cleaning tools. 

Until April 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT, get the JASHEN V18 350W Cordless Vacuum Cleaner for $135.99 (reg. $336) with code ENJOY20. 

StackSocial prices subject to change. 

Opens in a new window Credit: JASHEN JASHEN V18 350W Cordless Vacuum Cleaner $135.99 at the Mashable Shop
$336.00 Save $200.01 with code ENJOY20 Get Deal

TL;DR: The InCharge® X Max 100W 6-in-1 Charging Cable has adaptive connectors that work with USB-C, USB-A, Micro, and Lightning — get two of them for $31.99 with code ENJOY20 until April 16. 

The InCharge X Max is compact, portable, and can work with different devices without frustrating (and easy-to-lose) adapters. This six-in-one cable could be a great gift for a student or professional who keeps a lot of different devices on hand, and you can actually still get it on sale. Instead of paying $78, you can get a two-pack of InCharge® X Max 100W 6-in-1 Charging Cables for $31.99 when you enter code ENJOY20 at checkout through April 16. 

Great gift for students

It may look like a regular cable charge, but the InCharge® X Max is hiding some fun secrets. On the exterior, you have a tough-looking cable with nylon reinforcement for a little extra durability, but it's the connectors that really stand out with this one. 

The unique design of this cable means it's compatible with iPhones, Android, iPads, laptops, and a variety of other devices. It has connectors for USB-C, USB-A, micro, and Lightning built in, so you can charge different devices or transfer data between them. 

This cable is five feet long for that extra bit of mobility, because the outlet is never quite close enough with a three-foot charger. This versatile cable also supports power transfer, so you can use one USB-C phone to actually power another. That could come in handy in a pinch, and the adaptive connectors mean you may not need to carry around adapters for all your different devices anymore. Students and professionals who use a variety of devices from different manufacturers could save themselves a headache by keeping one or two of these on hand. 

Charge almost anything 

Don't miss your chance to get a cable you can use for practically anything. 

Until April 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT, you can get a two-pack of InCharge X Max Cables on sale for $31.99 with code ENJOY20.

StackSocial prices subject to change. 

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Valentine's Day just isn't enough. When you're in love, you'll take any excuse you can to show your significant other that you're obsessed with them.

Well, get your calendars out. National Boyfriend Day is your chance to shine.

When is National Boyfriend Day?

National Boyfriend Day is celebrated each year on October 3. Mean Girls fans will know that this coincides with Mean Girls Day. "On October 3rd he asked me what day it was."

What is National Boyfriend Day?

The origins of this day are unknown. National Boyfriend Day aims to provide an opportunity to show your male partner some love, to make them feel special, and to do something nice for them. It differs from National Girlfriend Day, which was originally set up as a way for women to celebrate female friendship (but can also be used to celebrate your female partners).

SEE ALSO: Our favorite tech gifts: Treat yourself to a new toy with that tax return money

Time to get your thinking cap on: how will you celebrate? Need gift inspo? Try out Mashable's Gift Lab to find the perfect gift.

Until 2024, our lunar neighbor didn't offer much in the way of reading material. 

Just four sentences were etched on old NASA landers, two on Apollo 11 and two on Apollo 17, both with Richard Nixon's signature. Other visible words include a memorial to fallen astronauts and logos on equipment (including Alan Sheperd's golf balls). One visitor donated a book — astronaut David Scott says he left his Bible atop a lunar rover in the Sea of Showers — but 53 years' worth of sunlight and gamma rays (which bombard the moon and break down paper) will not have left it in readable condition.

Then in late February, the moon received a massive donation of books — some 30 million pages' worth, to be precise. Also in the collection: 25,000 songs and a whole bunch of art.

How? Well, that groundbreaking lander Odysseus didn't merely deliver money shots from the moon's south pole, and it won't just be remembered for tipping over during landing. Something that landed right-side up is the first ever repository of human culture on a world beyond Earth. The Galactic Legacy Archive is its official name — but informally, we're more likely to think of it as the moon library.

No books can be checked out of this library. The pages are etched in nickel, on thin layers so tiny that you need a microscope to read them. (Forget microfiche, this is nanofiche). A good chunk of the archive, the digital part with music and images, requires that you read the nickel-etched primer on digital encoding.  

But it's on one small disk that can fit in your hand, and that's one giant leap for library-kind. "Nickel never decays and never corrodes," explains Nova Spivack, head of the nonprofit Arch Foundation that was making its third attempt to deliver the first off-Earth library. (This time it partnered with a company called Space Blue, which added more than 70,000 digital artifacts from 222 Earth artists.) 

"We can now say for the first time in history that civilization will not be lost." 

Now that it's in place, providing the tiny disks don't suffer a highly unlikely direct hit from a meteorite, the library "will last for as long as the moon," Spivack says. (Scientists' current best guess: the moon will stay in Earth orbit until the sun turns into a red giant, in 5 billion years' time). "Even if our planet is destroyed in a nuclear war, it'll still be there. We can now say for the first time in history that civilization will not be lost." 

SEE ALSO: Why landing a spaceship on the moon is still so challenging

The Arch Foundation's multi-year mission: place Galactic Legacy Archives all over Earth and around the solar system. It's good to have multiple backups. But what are we humans choosing to preserve, and what does it say about us? Spivak gave Mashable an exclusive look. Here are six highlights that future generations, or alien civilizations, might find in the moon library. Some of it is sublime, some of it ridiculous — a bit like the thing it aims to represent. 

1. The earliest art.  A cave painting with images of hands. Credit: The Arch Foundation

Cave paintings go back at least some 45,000 years. This early form of art was often a collaboration between generations centuries apart (such as the hands in the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina, above, painted in waves between 7,300 BC and 400 AD). Thanks to this new wave of collaboration, copies of hundreds of cave paintings exist on the moon – the same moon those hunter-gatherers would have seen most nights of their lives. 

It's fair to say they never imagined their digits would be compressed into digital files and blasted on a rocket to that mysterious orb.  

2. A version of Wikipedia … that makes Elon Musk look good?

The moon library contains what you might call an extremely offline version of Wikipedia, out of date long before it was sent. This English version's 6 million articles were downloaded by the Arch Foundation in 2021, though the 10,000 most-read entries were updated in 2022. 

What does that mean? Well, for one thing it means the version of Elon Musk on the moon – his Wikipedia entry – is forever frozen in time before his disastrous takeover of Twitter. Any aliens finding this archive will think of Musk as the richest person in the world (instead of, as he currently is, the third) and will wonder what he's doing as an encore after the rockets and the EVs. Let that sink in. 

3. Dogecoin. 

Back in 2021, Dogecoin fans put together a tune about sending their favorite currency "to the moon." Houston, we regret to inform you that the crypto has landed. 

Not in the way the crypto bros intended, of course. Dogecoin's price hasn't gotten close to its 2021 high, let alone rocket higher. But now, along with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the specs and design for this meme-based coin are literally on the lunar surface. Billions of years from now, the human race may have perished – but that side-eye shiba will live on.   

Some of the crypto-inspired art and detailed specs listed in the library. Credit: The Arch Foundation 4. 25,000 songs in your pocket.

What do Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, and The Who have in common? They're not just rock legends, they're rock legends who made it to the moon, man. Space Blue formed a partnership with Melody Trust, a company that owns the rights to the masters for some 25,000 classic rock tunes in the library; there's a special focus on 1969 recordings to commemorate the first moon landing.

Rock fans can also rejoice at the fact that among the many images in the digital archive is Pink Floyd's iconic Dark Side of the Moon album cover. "See you at the south pole of the moon" doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but that's where you'll find 'em.

5. David Copperfield's magic secrets. You may not be able to see the Great Wall of China from the moon, but you will be able to see how David Copperfield "walked through" the wall in 1986. Credit: CBS

"If you want to know how I'm going to make the moon disappear, go up there and check it out." So said magician David Copperfield to Space.com about a supposed upcoming performance that has yet to be announced. Perhaps Copperfield is waiting a while after the moon made its own spectacular performance by totally blocking the sun across a swathe of the U.S. – who'd want to follow that? 

Regardless, Copperfield's archive is contained in the library: all the details of his famous illusions, including the ones he performed at the Statue of Liberty and the Great Wall of China. Whether those artifacts last as long as the moon library remains to be seen.

6. Materials for worship … including Dune

Every kind of civilization-rebuilding text you can imagine is part of the archive, courtesy of the Long Now Foundation, an institute creating long-term cultural libraries. So is every language known to the Rosetta Project, an archive of all known languages. Religions are well represented: the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, and Buddhist scriptures all live on the moon now. There are images and stories from indigenous traditions on six continents. 

Plus thousands of beloved novels, Spivak says: "If it's an important book, it's there … Harry Potter, the Foundation Trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Dune." Wait, Dune? The story of a young aristocrat who becomes a God Emperor conquering billions of worlds? Let's hope we don't accidentally give the aliens any ideas. 

The bisexual community has an inside joke that describes what it's like to date as a bi person: People think it means double the options and double the fun, but it really just means double the rejection (sad trombone sound effect).

You have to be able to laugh at self-deprecating jokes like this if you're part of the "Single People Club," regardless of whether you're diving into the straight or gay dating scene, but bisexual people do face extra roadblocks in the dating world.

Online dating absolutely sucks for everyone, but the fact that there's only a single bisexual dating site that caters specifically to this community (and even then, we're kind of iffy about it) means many folks are frequently swiping on people who don't take bisexuality seriously. In 2024, that shouldn't be the reality.

There's [an] issue of bi people feeling invisible when they're deemed too "straight passing," which can often happen in queer spaces. This kind of invalidation contributes to many bisexual folks' struggles of not feeling queer enough.

The "B" in LGBTQ+ makes up 50 percent of the queer community, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign, but it's also one of the least-acknowledged letters in the acronym. What makes the bisexual dating landscape — especially the online one — so tricky to maneuver?

Before we get into the best dating apps for bisexuals, let's tackle this question for a sec.

Bisexuality is hyper-sexualized on heteronormative apps

Something many bisexual women are all too familiar with when navigating online dating is the concept — one as old as time — of men being straight-up creeps. It's like heterosexual males can't seem to grasp that bisexuality is not a green light to ask a woman how many girls she's been with or if she likes men or women better. Such comments, especially from absolute strangers online, are disconcerting at best and threatening at worst.

Megan, a 23-year-old woman from Virginia, told us via Facebook that she couldn't even count the number of gross (slash ignorant) messages she'd received from men in reference to writing "bi" in her Tinder bio. "There were times when they would be like, 'Oh, you never seemed gay in high school' or whatever, because gay is obviously a personality trait 🙃," she said. "Like my sexuality wasn’t a real thing, or it was just a fetish to these people."

Even on Bicupid, the aforementioned singular bisexual dating app, there are a lot of couples only looking for bi women to hook up with. We aren't saying that threesomes are wrong, but let's not assume that every bi person is dreaming of hooking up with you and your beau. You'd think the user base on queer dating apps would be more enlightened than on comparatively heteronormative apps, but that's not always the case.

Catfishing is also an issue bi folks have to grapple with. Some men have such a rabid obsession with queer women that they'll sign up for a dating site as a woman just to see an all-women swiping field. It's a total privacy breach and certainly doesn't boost your willingness to meet up with someone IRL. That's why the best dating sites require some form of Facebook or ID verification these days; in the case of Tinder, built-in background checks are (thankfully) now a mainstay feature of the app.

Queer dating apps aren't always inviting, either

Does "gold star lesbian" sound familiar to you? Not everyone sees the label as a positive, despite its cheerful-sounding name. It refers to lesbians who have never slept with a man. Countless bisexual women have reported being ghosted after disclosing that they have been with a guy before, and even on the best dating apps for bisexual women, profiles with "gold stars only" in the bio have popped up.

Then there's the issue of bi people feeling invisible when they're deemed too "straight passing," which can often happen in queer spaces. This kind of invalidation contributes to many bisexual folks' struggles of not feeling queer enough.

This feels a lot like the impossible Goldilocks principle, doesn't it, of being too much and never enough?

SEE ALSO: Bisexuality and the anxiety of not feeling 'queer enough' Why you might still want to put "bi" in your dating app bio

Adding those two simple letters to your bio will draw some unwanted attention, and it's going to be a pain in the ass. But in the long run, it will also act like an asshole filter to weed out people who try to put sexual orientation into a box.

Just think about it: Would you want your partner to think that being bisexual is just a pit stop on the road to being a "full-blown gay"? Of course not. Then there's the old stereotype that bisexuality means you want to bang anything that moves. The easiest way to ensure that you won't be left heartbroken over someone rejecting or questioning your sexuality is to let them know how you identify from the jump. You deserve the very best, which means only those people who accept you as you are.

With all of this in mind — and it's a lot to keep in mind — we wanted to review the best bi dating apps. We can't promise you'll never have a bad experience on these (indeed, mishaps are all but guaranteed when you brave dating apps), but we believe these particular apps give bisexual men, women, and non-binary folks the very best shot at finding a compatible partner.

The Fallout games are synonymous with a few things: a crumbling, retro-futurist American aesthetic; brutal combat with rusty, makeshift weapons; and the old-fashioned, often deeply harmonised sounds of popular American music from the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Think Cole Porter, The Andrews Sisters, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra.

By the time you've finished the Fallout TV series, you might not want to hear big band music again in your life, but perhaps you found comfort in the soundtrack and its jazzy ways. Either way, it's one of the more polarising mechanics of the Bethesda game franchise. (Honestly, if you can hear The Ink Spots' "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" without thinking of wandering the Wasteland, you're in the minority.)

And in their adaptation of the games for Prime Video, Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan have not only leaned into Fallout's obsession with this specific pre- and post-war era of music, they completely understand the function of it in the game: pure and utter comfort in the face of violence and horror.

SEE ALSO: 'Fallout' hides a neat game loading screen Easter egg in episode 1

In the Fallout games, when you're not listening to the original scores, you can tune into the last bastion of broadcasting in post-apocalyptic America through your Pip-Boy, the chunky wearable computer that proves your most crucial device. Through the radio function across the games, you can find rogue stations like Galaxy News Radio (GNR) hosted by the legendary Three Dog (Fallout 3), Diamond City Radio hosted by Travis Miles (Fallout 4), and Mojave Music Radio or Radio New Vegas (Fallout: New Vegas). You can also switch radios on in abandoned buildings if you don't want the sound directly emanating from your wrist.

Fallout fans either love or hate this feature. I personally adore it.

On most of these radio stations, you'll hear survival updates for your location, as well as a stream of songs that you can listen to as you explore the sprawling game map, engage enemies, and investigate deep, dark ruins. For me, these soothing tunes often make it easier to move forward through blood-spattered, booby-trapped schools and supermarkets, or to take on furious Super Mutants on crumbling but recognizable streets.

In the Fallout TV series, alongside a gorgeous score by Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi, there are a slew of songs that are used in the games themselves or are from those same musical eras. When characters have to commit bloody acts or engage in combat, the show drops Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Some Enchanted Evening," Johnny Cash's "I Heard That Lonesome Whistle," or The Platters' "Only You."

You can hear Jack Shaindlin's "Let's Go Sunning" at the start of episode 4, a song I heard many a time from my Pip-Boy in Fallout 3. There's also a whole attack scene set to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" in episode 3. In one of the funniest needle drops of the season, the aforementioned "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" can be heard while Lucy (Ella Purnell) has to do a deeply grisly thing in episode 4. The song continues into the start of episode 5, embodying the deeply messed-up nature of Fallout's reliance on musical sweetness to mask brutality.

Featured Video For You Grow plants from fantasy games with this IRL initiative

From Guardians of the Galaxy to Captain Marvel and the Kingsman franchise, splashy needle drops over big fight scenes have become a bit of a crutch for action titles, and it doesn't always work, often feeling more forced than fun (see: Argylle). But in Fallout, they authentically honour the source material and the reason the game gained such fame for using this particular genre of music. Not only do the songs assist you through the violence at hand, they directly connect the Fallout universe's post-apocalyptic American Wasteland to the time its characters are nostalgic for, before the nuclear blasts and World War II: the '50s and '60s. They're the last type of music recorded before the destruction, and so pirate broadcasters cling to it, instilling in the survivors a sense of nostalgia and comfort as their various limbs are being pursued by cannibalistic Fiends.

Granted, viewers of the Fallout series can't exactly switch off the music on their Pip-Boys while watching. But the use of these songs is one of the best ways the showrunners have incorporated a key game mechanic that's instantly and unmistakably Fallout.

All episodes of Fallout are now streaming on Prime Video.

Eagle-eyed Fallout fans will be glued to the screen of the new Prime Video adaptation, and they should be — the series is bursting with Easter eggs from the beloved Bethesda game franchise. And there's one neat reference to the game's loading screen hidden right at the very beginning.

In episode 1 of the TV series, from Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, the subterranean residents of Vault 33 have their seemingly happy lives disrupted by a band of raiders, violently infiltrating the bunker, killing a lot of vault dwellers, and destroying Lucy's (Ella Purnell) ill-fated wedding.

SEE ALSO: 'Fallout' trailer welcomes us to an unhinged apocalypse

In the background of the wheatfield-made-wedding space, the Telesonic Projector has been beaming sunny views of the the Nebraskan countryside on loop. But during the raider attack, the projector is hit with gunfire, meaning it glitches. Instead of the sweeping landscapes, you can see the projector is showing a temporary announcement to indicate technical difficulties. A black and white screen that resembles a '50s TV broadcast message, it reads: "Please stand by."

Fans of the Fallout franchise will recognise the screen as one of the first things you see when starting up some of the games including Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4. The "please stand by" screen clicks up as you start a new game or load one, which is fitting for the beginning of the TV series.

The screen itself takes inspiration from a real TV test card known as the "Indian Head Test Pattern", created for RCA in 1939 by an artist called Brooks. Among other designs, this test pattern became the standard for TV camera testing in America and other countries throughout the '40s and '50s, and fits with Fallout's Space Age retrofuturist tech aesthetic. It was used on black and white TV for the first electronic TV cameras to focus on, for studios to set their monitors, and for viewers to adjust their sets to. Originally, it featured an illustration of a Native American chief wearing a headdress, placed above black lines and circle shapes of various widths, all used by the cameras to determine light and focus. The original illustration was recently displayed at the Texas Broadcast Museum.

In Fallout, the game test card features a re-creation of this figure in the "please stand by" screens (except the online multiplayer Fallout 76, which subbed in the chipper Vault Boy cartoon at the top). It's the game loading screen you can see about 30 minutes into episode 1 of the TV series, beamed onto Vault 33's screens after the projector's film is burned. It's a fleeting reference, but fans won't miss it.

All episodes of Fallout are now streaming on Prime Video.

When it comes to shopping for the best cheap laptops, you can do a lot with $1,000. (Heck, even $500 cuts some mustard nowadays.) But you'll probably have to make some compromises along the way to stay below that price point.

That doesn't mean you have to settle for a total clunker that doesn't tick any of the boxes on your must-have specs list. It just means you have to shop a little smarter than someone with unlimited funds — and that's where we come in.

After meticulously hands-on testing the best laptops, we can recommend several affordable laptops for different budgets, operating system loyalties, and use cases. Read on for our guide to the best cheap laptops of 2024, including one new top pick as of April 2024: We just reviewed the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch, and it's our new favorite budget Chromebook (for now).