Blogroll

One of Google Maps' most recent features has become one of my most used ones on the navigation app, and for good reason. Ask Maps, an AI conversational feature, is now personalizing and simplifying navigation to a great extent.

If you’ve been using Obsidian for a while, you’ve probably seen Canvas in the sidebar and dismissed it as a whiteboard gimmick. That reaction makes sense—an infinite blank space with no obvious starting point isn’t exactly inviting. But Canvas isn’t a whiteboard—it’s where you go when your notes can’t hold the thought you’re trying to work through. Once that clicks, you’ll wonder how you have been thinking without using Obsidian Canvas.

Sick and tired of having your day disrupted by robocalls? You're not alone, and the FCC is taking notice. In press releases from the past month, the FCC said that preventing illegal spam calls has become its "top consumer protection priority," while FCC chairman Brendan Carr vowed to "bring meaningful robocall relief to consumers." 

Unfortunately, their approach might be so broad, so badly focused, that it will create new privacy concerns, destroy so-called "burner" phones, and place an extra burden on consumers. Or in the words of Gizmodo's Mike Pearl, "the FCC's cure might be worse than the disease."

One proposed change, known as the "Know Your Customer" rules, would require businesses to collect a government ID, a physical address, and the customer's full legal name, instead of just their phone number, to initiate phone contact. This proposed change might serve to stop robocalls, but it would also effectively end the concept of consumer privacy. In the words of civil liberties advocates Reclaim the Net: "The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans." 

Worse still, the FCC's proposed "red flags" that would heighten scrutiny are broad enough to encompass the lawful behaviors of millions of Americans. Proposed red flags include using a virtual office, making payments in cryptocurrency, using a "suspicious" email address, or operating a phone number not tied to a residential address. 

While all of these activities are likely indicative of robocall spammer behavior, they are also common practices among law-abiding citizens, who often operate out of virtual offices or use so-called "burner" or pre-paid phones. Worse still, the people who rely on prepaid phones often do so because of the anonymity they afford — think about refugees fleeing conflict zones or victims of domestic abuse attempting to keep a low profile. 

Finally, the FCC is looking to place the burden of enforcement on telecom providers, threatening them rather than individual spam callers with up to $2,500 in fines per call. While this approach is no doubt easier than searching out every individual robocall operator, and certainly motivates the companies to take enforcement seriously, it also creates a bad incentive in which telecom operators have to scrutinize each individual customer and their behavior at the expense of consumer privacy. 

Ultimately, spam calls might prove to be the price we pay for enjoying a modicum of privacy in the digital age.

There are plenty of good reasons to buy a new Honda Civic Type R. It’s quick, seriously fun to drive, and has a look that stands out in all the right ways.

Like many of you, I'm no stranger to Windows breaking itself after an update or otherwise ruining my day, but since I expect it to fail I tend to have backups and mitigations in place, so at worst it's annoying. As long as you don't use it for anything mission-critical, you're OK.

Linux Mint is a stable, reliable, and user-friendly Linux distro that provides a smooth transition for Windows users coming to Linux. But despite giving it several honest tries, I just don't seem to like it. Here's why Linux Mint and I just don't click, despite its objective merits.

We all want to treat our moms to the best, but sometimes the budget doesn't quite line up with the best of intentions. That's where freebies, voucher codes, and limited-time exclusives from popular restaurants come to the rescue.

You can find some really great food offers from the likes of Denny’s, Pizza Hut, Dunkin', and more popular names on Mother's Day this year. We've checked out everything on offer to bring you the very best, so you can treat her right this weekend.

Moms can get a free 24-ounce iced drink (any flavor) on Mother's Day.

Reward members get a BOGO free scoop on May 9. You might need to think of something else to do on Mother's Day, but it's still a nice early treat.

Score $10 off online orders of $30+ when you get breakfast for delivery or pickup with the code MOMDAY. This offer is live from May 9-11.

From May 9-10, Dunkin' is offering 3x points when you order either a 6- or 12-count donut box or 20- or 50-count of Munchkins.

Moms can get a free medium sundae with any adult entrée purchase.

From May 7-10, Morton's The Steakhouse is dropping an exclusive Mother's Day menu that starts from $79 per person.

Outback Steakhouse is dropping a limited-time “Mum’s Day Menu” with filet mignon and lobster tail combinations. Looking to go all-out this Mother's Day? This could seriously impress.

Pizza Hut is serving up its famous Heart Shaped Pizza for Mother's Day. This limited-edition pizza is available at select locations nationwide through May 10.

Caniac Club members get a BOGO Free Box Combo on May 10-11.

Ruth's Chris Steak House is offering a Mother's Day brunch on May 9-10, starting at $49 per person.

Get a free single burger with any $10 purchase using the app code for National Burger Month. OK, that's not a Mother's Day deal. But does she like burgers? If she does, it's a perfect Mother's Day deal.

TCBY is giving moms a 6-ounce treat for free. This offer is only valid on May 10, but your mom can choose between a small cup or cone.

White Castle is celebrating moms with a BOGO deal on combo meals. Plus, you can score 20% off any order this weekend by using the code WCMOM.

It's no secret that Milwaukee has a solid reputation and is one of the best power tool brands on the market, but that doesn't mean everything with its red-and-white logo is worth buying. Milwaukee makes a wide variety of tools, which is one of its strengths, but that also means some tools completely miss the mark or leave a little to be desired.

Depending on who you ask, the last people you'd want to stand next to at your neighborhood bar are the man who started the Iran war and the man who helped end abortion (their words, not ours). That's the premise of SNL's latest Cold Open, where Colin Jost's Pete Hegseth sulks into a barstool lamenting that nobody left in the Trump Administration can keep up with him drink-for-drink. That is, until Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh comes stumbling in, played by this weekend's host Matt Damon.

The two spend much of the sketch bonding over everything they've managed to accomplish — or inflict, depending on your perspective — since taking office. Hegseth is beside himself at the prospect of the Iran conflict actually ending and leaving him without a reason to exist, while Kavanaugh is in full waterworks mode over the "male loneliness epidemic." Rough night for powerful men.

Things do take a turn for the chaotic, however, when Aziz Ansari returns as FBI Director Kash Patel, instantly shifting the energy from sad-drunk to dangerous-drunk. Before long, the trio is floating the idea of a Trump third term.

Competitive gaming has evolved far beyond flashy shooters and fantasy worlds. Some of the most surprisingly intense e-sports scenes are built around software you probably used at work today. Here are some of the biggest ones.

3D printers have brought us closer to the world of Star Trek replicators, but we are still far away from sci-fi machines that can make anything at the press of a button. No single 3D printer is good at everything in equal measure.

I've been building PCs for something around 20 years, and seeing as it's a major hobby for me, I like to lurk around various PC building communities or talk to other PC owners. And one of the things that I see most often is worrying about the expensive stuff. Makes sense: if you spend over $1,000 on a GPU, you want to keep it safe.

Smart home forums are full of posts from people showing off the incredible dashboards that they've created, often displayed on wall-mounted tablets. While these dashboards can show you a lot of information about your smart home, there are many ways in which a simple E-Ink dashboard is a better option.

Everyone knows devices use more battery when screens are on—pushing pixels on a high-resolution display isn’t easy. But what if I told you enabling the always-on display on a Samsung Galaxy Watch could bring better battery life? Sounds wrong, but it’s true.

While the Western genre and its archetypes epitomize an iconic era in American history, most movies are generally just works of fiction. And while they make for great movies, it’s always those that are inspired by or at least nominally depict true stories that draw the most attention.

There are now more than a dozen Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) SUVs available for sale, with nearly every mainstream automaker offering at least one. Models like the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Hyundai Tucson, and Mazda CX-70 are popular options. My personal favorite is the Lamborghini Urus SE, though its price tag is higher than the Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, and Mazda combined!

Kevin Hart is known for cracking jokes about his peers onstage. Now, the tables are turned, as Hart will be in the hot seat for The Roast of Kevin Hart, which streams live tonight on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The roast will take place at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.

The Linux terminal is a powerful way to run programs on your computer from the command line. Using scripts, you can easily repeat common tasks, even using complex programming logic.

AI is already working its way into the average office worker's day, whether that means cleaning up emails, organizing notes, explaining confusing language, or making a giant document less painful to deal with. And with so many AI tools and subscription tiers out there, the real question isn't whether AI can summarize something. It's whether the summary is good enough to trust.

You can improve many items with 3D printed upgrades, but things don’t always fit perfectly the first time around. It’s frustrating to spend time and money waiting for an object to print, only to find out it was all for naught and you have to start again.