Blogroll
I tested two cheap 1000W power supplies—one literally went up in smoke
You'll often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars between your processor, graphics card, and RAM. Don't endanger the entire setup by buying an inexpensive power supply that can't keep up with your system's needs.
What to consider before taking that "good deal" on a used luxury car
Buying a used luxury car can be tempting. Some models depreciate so rapidly that their asking price practically begs you to take one home. For example, a brand-new Mercedes-Benz S 580 4Matic starts at about $131,000. Add just a few options and the price can easily surpass $150,000. That is roughly triple the price of the average new car.
The 8 best hidden Microsoft Word features
Want to impress your friends and coworkers? Try these hidden Microsoft Word features! You may have used Microsoft Word for years, but you haven't fully taken advantage of its capabilities. I'll share eight hidden Word features that often go unnoticed. Let's dive in.
This weekend you can get the DJI 4K drone for $60 off
SAVE $60: As of February 14th, Amazon has the DJI mini 4k drone on sale for $239, down from its list price of $299.
Opens in a new window Credit: DJI DJI Mini 4K, Drone with 4K UHD Camera for Adults, Under 249 g $239 at Amazon$299 Save $60 Get Deal
This weekend is seeing an excellent sale on the DJI Mini 4K drone for a limited time. Save 20% on this drone with a 3-axis gimbal and the ability to capture UHD footage in up to 23 mph winds. Brushless motors can reach altitudes of up to 4,000 meters.
The DJI mini is also beginner-friendly with features like one-touch takeoff and landing (which saves you from many common manual arrival and departure accidents). The mini also comes replete with the GPS return-to-home feature, which works like a boomerang, returning to you from up to 10km. The 10km figure was measured in a completely unobstructed environment with no buildings, trees, or inclement weather obstructing the signal. This is the absolute maximum distance your drone could travel before losing connection, transmission, and the ability to return to you. To be safe, DJI says the connection range is more like 1.5-3km in high-obstruction urban areas and 3-6 km in medium-obstruction areas like suburbs.
The DJI mini 4K is light enough that it doesn’t require registration with the FAA. The device also features “Intelligent Quickshots” that perform more advanced shots, such as Helix and Circle shots, on their own. This gives you the chance to capture professional-looking footage without a ton of experience.
The 6 best shows like Peaky Blinders
Of all the shows I watch, gritty crime and period dramas are my absolute favorite. They’re an obsession that started nearly 20 years ago with an epic biker saga and was cemented by 2014’s Peaky Blinders, which saw enormous global success with its depiction of a notorious crime gang in 1919 Birmingham, England.
This 57” Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Gaming Monitor is 35% off for President’s Day weekend
SAVE $800: As of February 14th, Amazon has this 57” Samsung Odyssey gaming monitor on sale for $1,499, which 35% off down from its list price of $2,299.
Opens in a new window Credit: Samsung SAMSUNG 57" Odyssey Neo G9 (G95NC) Series Dual 4K UHD 1000R Curved Gaming Monitor $1,499$2,299 Save $800 Get Deal
This weekend, you could upgrade your significant other's Valentine’s Day (or year) by picking up this massive gaming monitor from Samsung. This 57” Samsung Odyssey gaming monitor has a slight curve for true immersion into your virtual world of choice. Samsung claims that it’s the world’s first dual UHD monitor, meaning it's the first monitor to be as big as two side-by-side 27" UHD monitors.
With this colossally wide field of view, you also get a 240Hz refresh rate (which reduces lag) and a 1ms response time, both of which contribute to a seamless, crisp visual experience. The monitor comes with DisplayPort, HDMI, and a USB hub for hooking up your devices with ease.
Reviewers of this monitor praise its picture and resolution quality. One reviewer who upgraded from two side-by-side monitors said it was super worth it. Other reviewers praised the convenience of a screen this wide for multitasking and gaming.
One five-star reviewer mentioned that the monitor is quite heavy and might not be compatible with an arm attachment. If you’ve been wanting to upgrade your workstation, this could be a monumental addition to the mix.
A controversial dating app uses credit scores to create matches
Just when you thought the outcry against dating app culture couldn’t get any louder, an old app returns to remind us that there truly is no floor.
Enter Score, an app that was first launched back in 2024 by a financial services company looking to promote greater openness about personal finances. To qualify for Score membership, users had to prove they had a credit score of 675 or above, and that gimmick somehow garnered them north of 50,000 active users.
According to a recent interview with TechCrunch, Score founder Luke Bailey is eager to relaunch the app. There is already a Score website where you can sign up for the waiting list and discover their new tagline: "Dating For People With Good Credit."
SEE ALSO: I watched every episode of 'Pop the Balloon.' Here's what it taught me about dating.In the new-and-improved Score, inclusivity is the focus. The app will offer two membership tiers: a general-access membership for everyone and a higher tier for members who are willing to verify their credit scores. Doing so unlocks more quality-of-life features, including the ability to send video introductions or message people who haven’t already swiped to talk to you.
Score is teaming up with Equifax to handle both credit and ID verification, prompting tech-savvy critics to raise privacy concerns. But according to a press release, Bailey doesn’t believe there’s anything inherently superficial about using a credit score as a proxy for dating value.
"We look at credit not as a measure of wealth, but as a reflection of consistency and reliability. Most dating platforms measure attrition," says Bailey in the press release. "We measure reliability alongside compatibility." The general idea being that someone who doesn’t shirk their regular credit card payments is also less likely to ghost their dating app matches.
The timing of the Score launch is also inauspicious, as younger Americans are simultaneously experiencing a credit crunch and a weakening job market comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, with average credit scores falling at a faster rate than at any time since 2009. The bet that Score is making is that, in a search for financial stability, users might re-prioritize the credit-worthiness of their potential partners, but it’s just as likely that young people will view this move as yet another crass attempt to harvest user data under the guise of offering a worthwhile service.
Finally, the app's underlying thesis deserves some scrutiny. Are credit-worthy people also inherently more reliable in dating? Does a missed credit card payment suggest a flaky personality, or someone likely to forget to return a phone call or remember a birthday? We suspect the market will supply the answer to those questions.
Water leak sensors are cheaper than an insurance claim
Home insurance is a last line of defense, a financial cushion to help you recover after damage to your home. It’s also an expensive way of dealing with liability. While you can’t account for every eventuality, taking steps where possible to avoid disaster will save you from emotional and financial turmoil.
The one cheap smart home upgrade your NAS needs
Is your NAS only handling your file management and nothing else? It’s an always-on computer and can do so much more. By moving Home Assistant to your NAS and picking up a cheap USB stick, you can give your smart home the upgrade it deserves without breaking the bank.
Every Apple Podcasts user should change these settings now
If you own an iPhone, there's a very good chance you use Apple Podcasts. It's the gateway to finding a large library of shows and topics, and you don't even have to visit the App Store to use it. Don't let the simplicity of a pre-installed app fool you: Apple Podcast has a lot to offer
Here's how to quickly find the fastest USB port on your PC
Quickly finding the fastest USB port may seem complicated, what with the sheer number of USB ports modern motherboards and cases are packing, but it's actually fairly simple. Just follow the advice below, and you'll locate the fastest USB port on your PC in a jiff.
The best budget audiophile hack is actually a 1994 PlayStation
It's not an exaggeration to say that the original PlayStation is my favorite console of all time, and that's not just driven by when I was born. In fact, I'm a bigger fan of the PS1 now than when it was contemporary. This console stands tall in history purely on the strength of its game catalog, but there's something it has in common with the PlayStations that followed, which also helped cement its future.
Why a "poop bucket" is the most essential 3D-printing upgrade you'll ever make
3D printers are a feat of modern engineering. Yet, somehow, 3D printers have one major problem that has yet to be solved: they poop. I think a poop bucket (or poop chute) is one of, if not the most essential 3D printing upgrade you’ll ever make—here’s why.
Homeland security pushes social media giants to dox anonymous accounts critical of ICE
In the latest escalation of their efforts to push back against opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security is issuing hundreds of subpoenas to the largest social media companies, including Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Discord and Reddit, seeking to learn the personal information behind accounts that have either criticized ICE or alerted the general public to the locations of ICE agents, according to reporting conducted by the New York Times.
Under the conditions of anonymity, four government officials and tech employees with privileged access to these DHS subpoena requests spoke to the Times, revealing that Google, Meta, and Reddit have complied with at least some of these government requests for private information.
SEE ALSO: How Minneapolis used tech to make ICE retreatWhen pressed for comment by The New York Times, Meta, Reddit, and Discord declined to comment, while a Google spokeswoman offered this statement:
When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations. We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.
DHS told the Times that the agency had "broad administrative subpoena authority," but declined to answer questions about these social media requests, while their lawyers have argued that the information is necessary to protect the safety of ICE agents operating in the field. In practice, however, the subpoenas have often been withdrawn before they could be presented to a judge, placing the onus on the accused to seek restitution in court.
This legal battle is just the latest in a larger confrontation between the powers of technology and the long-established rights to privacy and free expression, and understandably, it has drawn the attention of civil liberties advocates. In Minneapolis and Chicago, for example, ICE agents have warned protesters that they would be recorded and identified with facial recognition technology, while border czar Tom Homan has publicly called for a database of people "arrested for interference, impeding, and assault."
The ACLU has stepped in, offering legal representation for people whose social media accounts have been subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security, while Steve Loney, senior supervising attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, issued this warning: "The government is taking more liberties than they used to. It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability."
Pigeons vs. Gigabit fiber: Why the bird still wins in 2026
Our modern internet is fast—really fast. Personally, I've been enjoying Gigabit internet speeds for a few years now, a far cry from the 33.6Kbps internet connection I started out on in the late '90s.
This surprisingly efficient SUV most people overlook
The Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid gets lost in a sea of oversized SUVs, turbo badges, and headline-grabbing , even though it makes way more sense for most people. With new car prices hovering around $50,000, “big and flashy” isn’t exactly realistic for everyday buyers anymore.
I run these Docker containers every day—and I deleted the rest
Docker is the heart of my homelab—I couldn’t run the services that I do, in the ways that I do, without it. Throughout the years I’ve likely ran well over 100 containers, if not many more. Through the trials and testing, I’ve found that some containers are here to stay, and some I had to let go of.
5 ways you're ruining your own 3D prints
If you’ve been 3D printing for more than a few weeks, you’ve probably decided—at least once—that your printer is the problem. The machine is cheap. The firmware is bad. The manufacturer cut corners. Something must be wrong, because your print just failed again.
5 powerful Python one-liners that will make you a better coder
Most Python programmers have a common reason to love the language. It lets you get more done with less code. Over time, this leads to a culture of “why write ten lines if one will do?” Let's look at a few everyday programming tasks and see how Python can compress them into elegant one-liners.
Bitcoin biopic Killing Satoshi leans into generative AI
An upcoming biopic about the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, starring both Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson, is causing controversy for its willingness to use artificial intelligence, not only to generate backgrounds and scene locations but also to adjust actor performances.
The film, Killing Satoshi, will be directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity and 2024's Road House) but it was producer Ryan Kavanaugh who has been making headlines when he disclosed in a U.K. casting notice that the filmmakers reserve the right to "adjust" actor performances, including the right to "change, add to, take from, translate, reformat or reprocess" those performances, and that the actors themselves will be performing on a "markerless performative capture stage and not in any locations," according to reporting by Variety.
These revelations come at a time of heightened anxiety and uncertainty in the film and TV industry, particularly around the use of artificial intelligence to augment, or even fully replace, the work of creative professionals. Labor unions, copyright lawyers, and federal courts are scrambling to come to terms with the implications of generative AI’s incredible ability to repurpose existing creative material.
Consider, for example, this AI-generated encounter between Keanu Reeves’ characters Neo and John Wick and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic Terminator, created using Seedance 2.0, or this AI-generated clip of Jack Black doing a comedic turn as Darth Vader from Star Wars, created using Google’s Veo 4, and you’ll quickly grasp the transformative and disruptive power of these technologies.
In response to the public anxiety around the choice to lean into AI use in the making of Killing Satoshi, producer Ryan Kavanaugh had this to say to Variety:
We were very cautious, sensitive and overly protective of our actors to make sure we only use performance capture AI which means that we will not have any AI-generated actors that do not exist. AI is a tool we’re using to make the filmmaking process more efficient while maintaining all department heads’ jobs, all actor jobs and hopefully helping to grow the industry in a positive way.
Though currently still just in production, Killing Satoshi will be one of the first movies to test these boundaries, so anyone interested in the intersection of AI and creative work should pay close attention to its reception.


