Blogroll

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

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.

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.

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.

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 retreat

When 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Romance is in the air, and Valentine's Day weekend has officially arrived. Apple TV celebrated a little early by adding the most enticing fantasy romantic comedy of 2025, Eternity, which enjoyed a moderately successful run in theaters late last year. Eternity is a tale of a woman who must choose between two men to spend her afterlife with. It's surprisingly sweet and clever, but there are plenty of other fantasy rom-coms out there to enjoy if Eternity doesn't fill the quota.

As an experienced coder or a newcomer learning your first programming language, setting up your development environment can be tricky. Let me show you how I put together the perfect Linux programming platform using VS Code and containers.

Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.

Released in August 2025, the Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.

Currently, if you're stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move onto the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you've ever played dominoes, you'll have a passing familiarity for how Pips is played. As we've shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don't necessarily have to match.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for February 14, 2026

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible – and common – for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

Here are common examples you'll run into across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for February 14, 2026 Easy difficulty hints, answers for Feb. 14 Pips

Equal (1): Everything in this purple space must be equal to 1. The answer is 1-1, placed vertically; 1-5, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this orange space must add up to 5. The answer is 3-6, placed vertically; 4-2, placed vertically.

Equal (4): Everything in this purple space must be equal to 4. The answer is 4-2, placed vertically; 5-4, placed vertically.

Number (5): Everything in this red space must add up to 5. The answer is 5-4, placed vertically.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for Feb. 14 Pips

Equal (1): Everything in this space must be equal to 1. The answer is 4-1, placed horizontally; 1-5, placed vertically.

Greater Than (4): Everything in this space must be greater than 4. The answer is 1-5, placed vertically.

Equal (5): Everything in this dark blue space must be equal to 5. The answer is 2-5, placed vertically; 5-5, placed horizontally.

Equal (4): Everything in this orange space must be equal to 4. The answer is 4-4, placed horizontally; 0-4, placed vertically.

Equal (0): Everything in this red space must be equal to 0. The answer is 0-4, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for Feb. 14 Pips

Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally.

Number (4): Everything in this space must add up to 4. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally.

Equal (3): Everything in this orange space must be equal to 3. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically; 3-3, placed horizontally.

Equal (2): Everything in this dark blue space must be equal to 2. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally; 2-5, placed vertically.

Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 6-6, placed horizontally.

Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 1-5, placed horizontally; 2-5, placed vertically.

Equal (4): Everything in this green space must be equal to 4. The answer is 2-4, placed vertically; 3-4, placed vertically; 4-4, placed horizontally.

Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-5, placed horizontally; 0-2, placed horizontally; 0-0, placed vertically.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Today's Connections: Sports Edition is know your spot up shooters.

As we've shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, 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 the latest Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections: Sports Edition?

The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

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.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

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.

SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. Here's a hint for today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: Ref noises

• Green: NBA Jam

• Blue: Sharpshooters

• Purple: College icons

Here are today's Connections: Sports Edition categories

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

• Yellow: Signal for Play to Stop

• Green: Dunks

• Blue: NBA 3-Point Contest Winners

• Purple: College Mascots

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 today's Connections: Sports Edition #509 is...

What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?

• Signal for Play to Stop - BUZZER, HORN, SIREN, WHISTLE

• Dunks - 360, BETWEEN-THE-LEGS, REVERSE, WINDMILL

• NBA 3-Point Contest Winners - HERRO, HIELD, LOVE, PIERCE

• College Mascots - BIG AL, BRUTUS, OTTO, RAMESES

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

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Connections.

It’s 2026 and, for some reason, I still have to use third-party tools to access my computers remotely—except for my Raspberry Pi. It seems the cheap single board computers are more technologically advanced than my high-end MacBook Pro or Windows desktops, and I’m not sure why that’s still the case.

Even though modern game consoles demand fast solid state storage for playing games, they can still use external hard drives and SSDs for archive storage and other features. If you have an old drive you’re not using, it might be a great upgrade for your console.

Google Home is one of the big players in the smart home world, offering cross-platform support for a large number of devices at a reasonable price point. Though there are many reasons that you might turn to Google for your smart home needs, there are a few uncomfortable truths that are worth acknowledging.

Android apps are required to ask for permission to access your photos, track your steps, read notifications, and much more. Some Permissions have a bigger impact on your phone’s performance than others. There are three, in particular, that shouldn’t be granted willy-nilly.

Recently I needed to set up a publicly available form. I didn't want to use Google Docs, and I don't have enough web development skills to build my own and deploy it securely. That's why I ended up using an alternative: CryptPad.