All posts tagged: hard

Motherhood Got Too Hard, So I Did Something Wild

Motherhood Got Too Hard, So I Did Something Wild

Published by skeptic

At 2:00 a.m., I dimmed my phone and read about plasma exchange for post-COVID patients. My son Marty’s diagnoses blurred together—Long COVID, Lyme, Celiac, chronic fatigue. Suddenly, I was Marty’s chief medical officer, nutritionist, and motivational momma. “Do your best and a little better!” I said every morning when Marty couldn’t get moving. I packed antibiotics and supplements into a rainbow pill organizer like it was an Olympic event. I was doing everything to keep him going. But I was falling apart. Then, one night, an email popped up that had nothing to do with lab results or missed school assignments. “Professor,” wrote Hasan, one of my former journalism students. “I’m getting married! Please come to my wedding in Pakistan.” I imagined the flight. I could binge-watch Slow Horses and sleep. I reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to clarify the Level 3 travel warning for Pakistan. “There’s terrorist activity along the border,” an employee wrote. “We advise reconsidering travel.” Also, Israel had just bombed Iran, and I’m Jewish. “I just won’t mention …

Does intermittent fasting improve gut health? Why it’s hard to say

Does intermittent fasting improve gut health? Why it’s hard to say

Published by skeptic

How does intermittent fasting change the gut microbiome? Oliver Leedham/Alamy Stock Photo There is evidence that intermittent fasting alters the gut microbiome, and while this is often believed to improve gut health, some studies are now raising doubts about whether that is always the case. The idea behind intermittent fasting is relatively straightforward: instead of focusing on what you eat, you focus on when, cycling between periods of fasting and eating. The most popular approach limits all meals and snacks to the same 8-hour window each day. Source link

Every NFL team wants a good, young quarterback. Drafting one is the hard part.

Every NFL team wants a good, young quarterback. Drafting one is the hard part.

Published by Sam

At this week’s NFL draft, the 32 teams in the world’s most profitable league will be searching for its most valuable commodity: a young, difference-making quarterback. Talent is only part of the appeal as new draftees enter the league on bargain, cost-controlled contracts. In a league in which offenses rely heavily on passing and the highest-paid veteran quarterbacks command $60 million annually, paying a starter a fraction of that amount makes it easier to build a championship-contending roster under the salary cap. Teams devote countless hours and resources toward what amounts to perhaps the highest-pressure job search in professional sports, all in hope of uncovering the next Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow or Brock Purdy, each of whom has led his team to a Super Bowl appearance while on a rookie deal since 2019.  Follow along for live coverage of Round 1 of the NFL draft Yet all the investment in and spotlight on identifying a franchise’s next great quarterback don’t mean teams have gotten any better at picking them.   Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders …

It’s Hard to Pick a ‘Black Mirror’ Season 7 Favorite. Just Don’t Skip This Episode

It’s Hard to Pick a ‘Black Mirror’ Season 7 Favorite. Just Don’t Skip This Episode

Published by skeptic

Black Mirror season 7 feels like a return to the show’s unsettling roots, with each episode focusing on different facets of how artificial intelligence can disrupt society — it sort of is, already. I’ve watched every entry in the new installment, and one specific episode has haunted me since the credits rolled. I’m talking about Hotel Reverie, the mostly bittersweet black-and-white romance that delivers heaps of nostalgia and sincere emotion. Underneath it all, though, exists a stark warning for entertainment and the industry’s future. Simply put, the episode hints at AI’s threat to Hollywood. And, dare I say, the bleak creative scenario the episode alludes to is pretty much already here. Issa Rae plays Hollywood A-lister Brandy Friday in the Black Mirror season 7 episode Hotel Reverie. Netflix The episode follows Hollywood A-lister Brandy Friday (played by Issa Rae), who decides to take a considerable risk with her career and signs on to star in the remake of a vintage movie, which aptly shares the title with the episode itself.  She soon discovers this is no …

The Lesson Trump Is Learning the Hard Way

The Lesson Trump Is Learning the Hard Way

Published by José

The U.S. has a lot of leverage over trade—but using it is not as simple as it seems. Illustration by Jonelle Afurong / The Atlantic; Sources: anucha sirivisansuwan / Getty; duncan1890 / Getty March 17, 2025, 9:35 AM ET The Founders knew that Americans, for better or worse, had an insatiable desire for overseas trade. “They are as aquatic as the tortoises and sea-fowl,” observed John Adams, “and the love of commerce, with its conveniences and pleasures, is a habit in them as unalterable as their natures.” As early as 1785 he foresaw that Americans would be compelled to form “connections with Europe, Asia, and Africa,” and he advised that “the sooner we form those connections into a judicious system, the better it will be for us and our children.” Thomas Jefferson would have preferred to cease all commerce with the rest of the world and rely on the simple virtues of the “yeoman farmer,” but he knew this was impossible. “Our people have a decided taste for navigation and commerce … and their servants …

How to Safely Manage Hard Drive Partitions in Windows

How to Safely Manage Hard Drive Partitions in Windows

Published by skeptic

Quick Links Use Windows Built-In Tools to Manage Partitions When to Use Third-Party Partition Managers Managing hard drive partitions might seem intimidating, but it’s a straightforward process with the right tools. Windows offers built-in utilities that make partition management relatively easy, whether you’re setting up a new PC, optimizing your storage, or troubleshooting disk issues. Windows comes with two powerful tools that allow you to manage disk partitions without installing additional software. These native options give you everything you need for basic partition tasks like creating, deleting, formatting, and resizing drives. Before making any changes to your partitions, I recommend backing up your important PC data. Partition operations always carry some risk, and while the built-in Windows tools are reliable, unexpected power outages or hardware issues could still cause data loss. Take a few minutes to save your important files to an external drive or cloud storage. If you’re using a desktop PC with multiple drive bays, you might prefer using separate physical drives rather than partitions. Many feel disk partitions are pointless with modern …

Man wants to search dump for lost hard drive with bitcoin fortune – here are his odds of finding it

Man wants to search dump for lost hard drive with bitcoin fortune – here are his odds of finding it

Published by skeptic

James Howells is considering buying a council dump in south Wales after his former partner accidentally threw away a hard drive containing his bitcoin wallet. Howells has already lost a high court case to allow him to search the tip for the hard drive, which he believes contains bitcoin worth £600 million. But would it even be possible to find it? Let’s do the maths. Howells, a Welsh IT engineer, was an early adopter of the cryptocurrency bitcoin in December 2008. By February 2009, he had started mining the coins on his laptop – a process which involves using your computer to carry out complex mathematical processes in exchange for the coins. At the time, he was one of just five people mining the currency, and he eventually accrued a fortune of around 8,000 bitcoin. Initially, these were basically worthless – the first real-world transaction involving the currency was in 2010, when a man in Florida bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. However, in the 15 years since, the value of the currency has grown …

Why Are the Names of British Towns & Cities So Hard to Pronounce?: A Humorous But Informative Primer

Why Are the Names of British Towns & Cities So Hard to Pronounce?: A Humorous But Informative Primer

Published by José

When they make their first transocean­ic voy­age, more than a few Amer­i­cans choose to go to Eng­land, on the assump­tion that, what­ev­er cul­ture shock they might expe­ri­ence, at least none of the dif­fi­cul­ties will be lin­guis­tic. Only when it’s too late do they dis­cov­er the true mean­ing of the old line about being sep­a­rat­ed by a com­mon lan­guage. Take place names, not just in Eng­land but even more so across the whole of Great Britain. How would you pro­nounce, for instance, Beaulieu, Ramp­isham, Mouse­hole, Tow­ces­ter, Gotham, Quern­more, Alnwick, or Frome? There’s a good chance that you got most of those wrong, even if you’re not Amer­i­can. But as explained in the Map Men video above, bona fide Brits also have trou­ble with some of them: a few years ago, the decep­tive­ly straight­for­ward-look­ing Frome came out on top of a domes­tic sur­vey of the most mis­pro­nounced names. If you’re keen on mak­ing your expe­ri­ence in Great Britain some­what less embar­rass­ing, what­ev­er your nation­al­i­ty, the Map Men have put togeth­er a humor­ous guide to the rules of …

Best External Hard Drives and SSDs for 2025

Best External Hard Drives and SSDs for 2025

Published by skeptic

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. Before anything else, you’ll want to figure out how much you’re willing to spend on a new external drive and whether you can afford a Solid State Drive in the capacity you want. External drives start at 500GB and go all the way up to 22TB or so. For a lot of people, especially if you’re looking at a faster SSD, the storage sweet spot is 1TB or 2TB. You’ll have to decide just what kind of performance you want and need based on your use case and the PC you have. Most external drives are compatible with a wide variety of computers, including Macs, Windows PCs and Chromebooks. Things get more complicated when you get into the realm of game consoles. Some of you may be storing sensitive data on your external storage drive. If that’s the case, look for drives that include security features, including encryption. What’s the best external …

Delicate robot hands know just how hard to squeeze

Delicate robot hands know just how hard to squeeze

Published by skeptic

A robotic hand with vibration sensors in the fingertips can grasp apples and oranges with just the right amount of force Anway S. Pimpalkar et al. (2024)/CC BY 4.0 A robotic hand inspired by human skin can sense how hard an object is with a single digit’s touch and work out how much force is needed to grip it before the rest of the hand closes its grasp. Gripping an object firmly enough to secure it, but softly enough that it doesn’t break, is something that humans learn as infants, but robots still struggle with. Source link