All posts tagged: Realize

I Found A Receipt Under My Daughter’s Pillow And It Made Me Realize What Terror She’s Being Exposed To Online

I Found A Receipt Under My Daughter’s Pillow And It Made Me Realize What Terror She’s Being Exposed To Online

Published by Jenni Sidey

The first sign was not a photo. It was a receipt. I found it while changing the sheets, tucked under my daughter’s pillow, folded twice, edges soft from being opened and closed too many times: $287.40: Activity fee + uniform + travel No note. No “Mom, can we talk?” Just the number, hidden where she sleeps. That night, after closing, I emptied my wallet on the kitchen table: $112, and a bus card with two rides left. When Zoya came out of the bathroom, hair damp, hoodie up, she hovered near the doorway like she was waiting for a storm. I held up the paper. “Is this yours?” Her shoulders lifted a fraction. Not defiance. Nracing.  “It’s due Friday,” she said. “I know,” I said. “Why was it under your pillow?” She stared at the floor. “Because I didn’t want to keep looking at it.” I nodded. I understood that kind of avoidance. You can’t fear something all day if you hide it at night. Then she reached into her pocket and slid her phone …

Deepfake videos degrade political reputations even when viewers realize they are fake

Deepfake videos degrade political reputations even when viewers realize they are fake

Published by José Betancourt

Artificial intelligence can be used to generate deceptive videos that damage a politician’s reputation, even when viewers suspect the footage is fake. A new study published in Communication Research found that these manipulated clips decrease support for targeted candidates. Standard fact-checking efforts reportedly fail to undo the total reputational harm. Disinformation created using artificial intelligence is often regarded as a major threat to global elections. Technology now allows malicious actors to seamlessly replace a person’s face or clone their voice. These creations are commonly called deepfakes. Political operatives can use these tools to make opposing candidates appear to say outrageous or offensive things. Michael Hameleers, a communication researcher at the University of Amsterdam, led a team to investigate how these videos influence the public. Hameleers and his colleagues Toni G. L. A. van der Meer, Marina Tulin, and Tom Dobber wanted to track voter reactions over time. They aimed to discover if these manipulated videos actually influence minds during an election cycle. Visual information is known to heavily influence human perception. Because people are accustomed …

Excel’s dynamic array functions made me realize I’d been solving problems the hard way for years

Excel’s dynamic array functions made me realize I’d been solving problems the hard way for years

Published by skeptic

Most Excel users I know learned formulas the same way I did — one function at a time, stacked on top of whatever they already knew. Dynamic array functions don’t replace those skills; they just make a lot of the workarounds unnecessary. I’ve been running my self-updating top-five lists with TAKE and DROP for a while, and the same shift has happened with the four functions below. Each one reduced a multi-step routine I used to perform reflexively to a single formula. Related Excel finally fixed its biggest data entry problem, and it’s a lifesaver One click in the Data tab can catch almost all issues. FILTER replaced an entire ritual of helper columns and array formulas One formula now does what multiple functions used to split between them Screenshot by Yasir Mahmood Pulling matching rows in older Excel meant building a nested INDEX, MATCH, SMALL, and IFERROR formula and entering it with Ctrl + Shift + Enter. It worked, but maintaining it later was a problem. The other option was to apply AutoFilter, copy …

Your Phone Notifications Reveal More Than You Realize. Here’s How to Lock Them Down

Your Phone Notifications Reveal More Than You Realize. Here’s How to Lock Them Down

Published by skeptic

You may have spotted the recent case of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation pulling Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even though the messages were set to disappear automatically, and the Signal app itself had been deleted from the phone. The trick used by law enforcement? Previews of each incoming Signal message were logged in the notification database kept by iOS. Even though Signal had deleted the conversations, and Signal itself was deleted, this database was still available to the FBI’s forensics teams. There is some good news: Apple has pushed out an iOS 26.4.2 update that makes sure notification logs are properly cleaned up after the notifications have expired. Make sure your iPhone is updated (via General > Software Update) and you should be protected against this type of intrusion. Still, the events are concerning for anyone interested in protecting their own privacy. And even though Apple has improved iOS’s housekeeping, there are steps you can take to further minimize your risk in similar circumstances. What Did the FBI Do? Unsurprisingly, the FBI …

My Father Died At 58, And It Took Me Years To Realize How Young He Really Was

My Father Died At 58, And It Took Me Years To Realize How Young He Really Was

Published by Jenni Sidey

The phone rang from the office attached to our classroom. Hans, my chef instructor, excused himself from lecturing, stepped into his office, and closed the door. A moment later, he returned and called my name, “Arpad, there’s a call for you.” I rose, went to the office door. Hans placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a pat, “Please close the door and take your time.” At his desk, I raised the receiver, “Hello, this is Arpad.” The voice on the other end of the line identified himself as an RCMP Constable. He was direct and delivered a succinct message. I mumbled a “Thank you” and returned the receiver to its cradle. The news was not unexpected, but at the same time, it seemed impossible. It was 1994, I was 21 years old, and my father had died a few hours earlier at age 58. Cancer was the victor. I didn’t know until later, but while I was in the chef’s office, Hans informed the class of my loss. The small assembly of …

The Habit You Don’t Realize Is Hurting Your Productivity

The Habit You Don’t Realize Is Hurting Your Productivity

Published by Jenni Sidey

Modern work culture has increasingly come to glorify multitasking. We make a habit of answering emails during meetings, checking messages while writing reports, and hopping between tabs dozens of times per hour. Whether for ancillary work or for quick entertainment, it can feel efficient, or even necessary. But cognitively speaking, the human brain cannot truly multitask. Instead, it switches. And every switch carries a hidden cost. The cost is called “attention residue.” It’s the lingering cognitive activation that remains after you shift from one task to another. Even when you believe you’ve moved on, part of your mind is still stuck in the previous task. The result is slower thinking, reduced accuracy, and a sense of mental fatigue that accumulates throughout the day. Why Task-Switching Is a Bad Habit One of the most groundbreaking discoveries in this field is that of Sophie Leroy, who introduced the concept of attention residue. Her seminal 2009 study, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, showed that the key to successful task switching is to get psychologically disengaged …

Coachella made me realize just how good we have it at music festivals in the UK

Coachella made me realize just how good we have it at music festivals in the UK

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This It was the second rickshaw that did it. The winding, dusty trail that leads from the Coachella taxi drop-off to the festival site proper is so long and circuitous that cyclists ply their trade along the marathon route. A couple of years ago this week, after half a mile or so of hiking in the baking sun, I finally caved and agreed to Venmo a jock with thighs the size of Christmas hams half a week’s wages to pedal me towards the distant strains of music. Eventually, we came to a fence, then a gate, and beyond it… another crowd of cycle rickshaws. I blinked the dust out of my eyes and realised this was no mirage. For some arcane, inexplicable reason, the road had been divided into two sections and I was now faced with either selling a kidney to pay for …

I didn’t realize how much of Amazon’s Fallout set was actually real

I didn’t realize how much of Amazon’s Fallout set was actually real

Published by skeptic

Fallout, a TV show based on the post-apocalyptic video game series, has been running on Prime Video for two seasons now, and people are lapping it up. The show is set in the ruins of what used to be the United States, where mutants, outlaws, and even Roman centurions have cropped up where there used to be civilization. The show does a great job of capturing the dark humor of the game series, staying true to the demented 1950s aesthetic, and serving up great drama. And it does it all without over-relying on computer-generated effects, green screens, or other digital fabrication. There’s a surprising amount of real sets and practical effects, which make the show even more impressive. The practical effects in Fallout are insane Why use CGI when you can go to the trouble of building giant puppets? Decades into the CGI revolution, a lot of audiences go into action movies and TV shows assuming that most of what they see isn’t really there, but generated after the fact. But Fallout keeps things old …

The oil crisis is making drivers realize they can’t afford not to drive electric

The oil crisis is making drivers realize they can’t afford not to drive electric

Published by skeptic

The national average gas price hit $4.09 per gallon this week — up 33% from a year ago — as yet another oil crisis hammers American drivers. But this time, the math on switching to electric is so overwhelmingly clear that millions of drivers are doing the calculation and reaching the same conclusion: they can’t afford not to drive electric. Electrified vehicle consideration jumped to 23.8% of all car shopper research activity in mid-March, the highest weekly level of 2026, according to Edmunds data. Online searches for EVs surged 17% in a single week as gas prices spiked. Oil crises keep happening — and they always will If the current gas price spike feels familiar, that’s because it is. American drivers have been through this exact pain cycle repeatedly, and it’s only getting worse: 2008: Oil hit $147 per barrel in July. Gas reached $4.05/gallon nationally — a record at the time. The cause: surging global demand meeting stagnant oil production, amplified by financial speculation. It took a full-blown recession to bring prices back down. …

Why Doesn’t Anybody Realize We’re Going Back to the Moon?

Why Doesn’t Anybody Realize We’re Going Back to the Moon?

Published by José Betancourt

The most momentous launch since the Apollo era was about to begin, and along Florida’s space coast, a secondhand exhilaration was working its way through the assembled crowd, as though all of us, and not just the astronauts, would soon ride out of Earth’s gravity well on a pillar of fire. The space faithful had started arriving at the A. Max Brewer Bridge in Titusville before dawn, under the light of a full yellow moon. They had set up their folding chairs and tripods at the high point of the bridge, to get the best line of sight, and stayed fixed in place during a brief rain, and again later, when a concerning wind blew across the lagoon. On the launchpad, the rocket stood more than 30 stories high, illuminated by banks of stadium lights. As the day wore on, a tailgate atmosphere took hold in the park at the foot of the bridge. For miles, cars had pulled onto nearly every available stretch of grass. Families spread out on picnic blankets, and college-aged kids …