Ever since the FBI took down the Silk Road and Dread Pirate Roberts last month, many questions have been raised about whether Tor still provides anonymity or not, and if it's now broken. I'll try to address that question here today succinctly from multiple angles, keeping it a ...more
Russians are well known for their knack at documenting exciting and horribly beautiful events on the go, from insane car accidents to attempted insurance fraud and even a superbolide meteor streaking across the sky. Videos like these aren't limited to just Russia—dashcams are ...more
For the most part, transferring files from your computer to your Nexus 7 (and vice versa) is a simple process. Just hook up your tablet to your computer with the USB cable and transfer. However, most of the time you'll need additional software on your computer to do this, and ...more
Is your favorite black T-shirt starting to look a little old? To restore a faded black fabric color to its former glory, add two cups of brewed coffee or black tea to your washer's rinse cycle. If you have the opposite problem and need to make your dirty white tees look super ...more
Welcome back, my neophyte hackers! As part of my series on Wi-Fi hacking, I want to next look at denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, and DoSing a wireless access point (AP). There are a variety of ways to do this, but in this tutorial we'll be sending repeated deauthentication f ...more
One thing that gets overlooked on Facebook is the amount of videos you can watch, and I'm not just talking about videos uploaded directly by Facebook users—I mean everything ever shared—YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Vimeo, etc. Sometimes one of those videos is just so good that y ...more
Welcome back, my nascent hackers! Earlier, I wrote a guide on finding operating system and application vulnerabilities in Microsoft's own security bulletins/vulnerability database. In this tutorial, I will demonstrate another invaluable resource for finding vulnerabilities an ...more
Whether you've had them for years or bought them used off Craigslist, old appliances can always benefit from a facelift. One of the first things to go is usually the lettering on the knobs, buttons, and other surfaces that are frequently touched, leaving them faded and difficu ...more
5 Steps to out your skin tone with Photoshop. 1) Open the image in Photoshop and make sure it is flattened into one layer (Layer –> Flatten Image) from the last time we were editing it. 2) Duplicate the layer (Layer –> Duplicate Layer) 3) Choose Surface Blur to even out the ...more
Many of us experience highly emotional "freakouts", so to speak, more often than we'd like. Weather you experience them personally, or via your loved ones, it can be very difficult to think rationally during an episode, and for some people it can take quite a while to calm dow ...more
In this "Quick Clip," I tried dunking inflated balloons into a container filled with liquid nitrogen until they were completely flattened and seemingly destroyed. Once out of the liquid nitrogen, the balloons come back to life and reinflate on their own—without even touching t ...more
If I were to lose access to the entire internet for the rest of my life, one of the websites I would miss the most would have to be Wikipedia. Wikipedia has ended countless arguments, informed me of how old and single some of my favorite actresses are, and helped me brush up o ...more
Hair products can work wonders, but the good stuff is usually super expensive. Plus, most of the major brands use a ton of ingredients you can't even pronounce, so it's safe to say a lot of us have no idea what we're putting in our hair. The good side is that most products can ...more
What should you do when you're confronted with a mind-numbingly boring task that simply needs to be done? First things first, rather than letting the boring task stretch indefinitely, give yourself a specific time frame to finish it, whether it's 10 minutes on a kitchen timer ...more
With this article, I'll be continuing the series I started with my recent plague doctor article. That is, examining tropes that may at first appear to not fit into Steampunk. Obviously the airship pirate never existed in real life, as we never really experienced the age of ai ...more
There's no shortage of techniques when it comes to light painting—you can use LEDs, flashlights, or even make your own light painting nunchuks. If you want to do something a little different, though, why not use a projector like photographer Brian Maffit did to capture these g ...more
Office binder clips, commonly used for binding together thick stacks of computer paper, can also be used as a bookmark, money clip, picture hanger, boots hanger, cable organizer, and more. Large and small binder clips can be constructed together in less than five minutes to c ...more
Lens caps are one of those necessary evils that serve a very useful purpose while still creating tons of headaches for users—who hasn't lost at least a few? Sure, you can always buy a holder for it, or just shove it in your pocket, but if you have some LEGOs lying around from ...more
Finding love is tough. Movies like The Notebook and Twilight have ruined the expectations of love and relationships for us guys. Some women's ideal love situation is being kissed by a glittery sparkling vampire. "I know we only met a few seconds ago, but I'm deeply in love wi ...more
'Tis the holiday season—a time for family and the best damn drunk uncle stories that you'll hear all year. Which is all the more reason to make these tasty little alcoholic treats... Spiked eggnog may be the more popular holiday vice, but these Baileys-infused homemade marshma ...more
Once you have the skills to bring your ideas to life, the hardest part is coming up with ideas. What do you do when you can't think of something to make? What happens when your well of inspiration runs dry? As someone who isn't an artist, I had to figure that out for myself. ...more
The concept and structure of Christmas hasn't changed much since its inception. In its infancy, Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn (also held in December). The pagans had long w ...more
There are many ways to make a lightsaber. You can turn a flashlight into a steampunk lightsaber, you can make a lightsaber from junk, and you can make one that looks totally real (if you've got the money and time). Heck, you can even make one in Photoshop. And now you can make ...more
Need a broom and a dust pan to clean up your living space? Look no further than your recycling bin and upcycle some of your empty drink containers to make new cleaning tools for your home. Using 3-5 empty 2-liter bottles (labels removed), a wooden dowel, and a few tools from ...more
If you need a cloudy background for a photo or video, you can always turn an old aquarium into a DIY cloud tank. But, if you want something more fun and less creepy, these fluffy cloud props by Serena Thompson might be more what you're looking for. It'd even make a good Hallow ...more
When it comes to common household items with a million practical uses, baking soda reigns supreme. We all know that baking soda is great for deodorizing stinky things, whitening your teeth, and helping with clean-up around the house, but did you know about the other weirdly un ...more
Fluorescent dye can be a great addition for decorating around the house for Halloween, especially for a haunted one. Creating your own fluorescent dye is a simple experiment, as long as you've got the proper chemicals and safety gear. Nurd Rage details the chemical process of ...more
Remember the young Parker who taught us how to make fun things like the ghost trap from Ghostbusters and the cheap severed leg effect? Well, he's definitely grown since then, and in his latest video he takes a more practical approach to DIY with a cheap and easy soft box for y ...more
The iPhone is probably one of the best looking phones ever made, but that beauty comes with a price. If you have a 4S or previous version, all it takes is one drop and the back glass is shattered (unless you're incredibly lucky). Replacing it yourself is pretty simple and chea ...more
Sick of washed out photos? How about red eye? Or maybe you can't get the right shot because your flash is causing too much shadow in the background. That's what a flash bounce is for—it reflects the light off of the ceiling or another surface so that your photos look more bala ...more
Toasters can do so much more than toast bread. A toaster oven can make your Halloween jack-o'-lanterns look pretty creepy, and you can even mod one into a reflow oven. But what about a regular ol' toaster? Well, you can turn one into a working NES console—or you can keep its b ...more
Android's operating system has garnered much of its popularity due to the high amount of customization the user has at their fingertips. Whether it's customizing your home screen, lockscreen or even operating system, Android has always been one step ahead of Apple in the custo ...more
You can brew your own beer on the stove, in a keg, or even inside a pumpkin, but those all look boring next to The Wobbly Boot Pico Brewery, the most sophisticated home-brewing system you'll ever see. Built by Ben_B, an engineer at National Instruments, the brewery sits on a s ...more
Everyone has taken a photo that didn't turn out quite right because of bad lighting or a flash that produced too much or too little light. A flash can make your subject look washed out, or even downright creepy with bright white skin and red eyes. But with a bounce wall, you c ...more
One amazing Japanese papercraft enthusiast has built a walking 'robot' that's made of nothing more than paper, rubber bands, and a few wooden shafts for stability. It's been dubbed the 'Paper Robot III,' and even the cogs and gears are made of paper. The creator made a video d ...more
There's nothing more annoying than that last little bit of Windex that won't come. Most spray bottles are horribly designed, with the suction tube usually the culprit, but you can replace it and have a spray bottle that works in any position in about five minutes. Video: . Wha ...more
Here we are again. This time, however, it's not Britney Spears that's being uke-d, but the delightfully infamous Lady Gaga. The wicked (we-can't-help-but-look-watch-listen) Lady Gaga. The ukulele brings out the sweet. Of course, it also helps (and one just cannot deny it!) th ...more
Send the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man back to the world of s'mores and hot cocoa this Halloween. This complete Ghostbusters costume from Instructables user Depot Devoid is like the real-life movie prop. You can shoot "laser" particle beams at ghosts with the Proton Pack, and cap ...more
A clever driver from Cairo, Egypt has revolutionized parallel parking with a fifth wheel built into his car. The extra wheel in the rear is perpendicular to the others and under the trunk (which looks like it's actually stored in the trunk compartment), and can be raised and l ...more
This video is a graphic illustration of the bizarre beauty practice of gluing one's eyelids. The goal is to make Asian eyes look more Western. The glue adds a crease to a monolid, making it a double eyelid. Mary, or Mulzanza on her blog, is a 21 year old Texan devoted to help ...more
We love these Gomi Style guys. Creators of past sensations like the cardboard chair and aqua mirror, here they come with a new inspiration. Steampunk! Steampunk can be traced back to the mid-80s cyberpunk movement out of Silicone Valley. Steampunk enthusiasts make all sorts c ...more
There is a whole world of smartphone accessories out there, some of which are more quirky than others and don't get the recognition they deserve. But these sometimes strange, sometimes embarrassing products can really make life easier on your iPhone or Android phone. We've fo ...more
You see the status bar nearly everywhere on your iPhone, and it almost always looks the same. But you can use a few tricks to spice things up a bit — without jailbreaking your iPhone. The status bar's background on iOS is transparent, so you'll see different colors and gradie ...more
Without realizing it, you may be giving away the GPS coordinates of your home, workplace, school, and other important or secret locations. Unless you've blocked the feature on your iPhone, location data is stored in almost every photo and video you take, and anyone you share t ...more
A low-key iPhone feature that's been around since iOS 10 can make the iMessages you send to family and friends more exciting overall. One particular element is, if you'll forgive my decades-old slang, "da bomb" for emoji. And no, I'm not talking about text bombs, i.e., automa ...more
The process of trying out new augmented reality and virtual reality hardware is as personal as it gets. Bottom line, if you can't directly try these immersive devices on, it's difficult to really understand the benefits they can bring to your life and work. That's why the Cov ...more
After piloting the Nreal Light in South Korea and Japan via carrier partnerships and securing another round of funding, Nreal is now ready to begin selling the consumer edition of the smartglasses to the western world as well as introduce a version for enterprise customers. A ...more
You know that you have the Gmail app on your iPhone. After all, you get Gmail notifications, you see it in the app switcher, it's in the Settings app, and there's an "Open" button in the App Store instead of "Get" or a download icon. But you cannot find the app on your Home Sc ...more
Whether you're using your iPhone to add graphics to a document, edit a photo, or sketch an idea, color plays a vital role in making your work look great. Apple's iOS 14 update introduces a system-wide color picker that lets you pick the exact color you want, save it to your fa ...more
These days, most images we post online or share with others come from our smartphones. Whenever personal data is in them, such as debit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information, it's easy to jump into your iPhone's markup tools to blac ...more
If you spend most of the time on your iPhone shooting photos and taking videos, you'll be happy that Apple has improved a few aspects of its Camera app in iOS 14. Even if you're just a casual photographer or videographer, you'll benefit from the new changes to the default came ...more
While there are other photo-editing apps to choose from on the App Store, Apple Photos is more than good enough for most needs on the iPhone — and things only get better with age. With each new iteration of iOS, Apple refines and improves Photos for the better, and iOS 14 adds ...more
People use browsers for all types of things, and in general, we trust a lot of personal information to them. That's why browsers are a perfect attack surface for a hacker, because the target may not even know they are infected and feed you all of the information you could want ...more
File permissions can get tricky on Linux and can be a valuable avenue of attack during privilege escalation if things aren't configured correctly. SUID binaries can often be an easy path to root, but sifting through all of the defaults can be a massive waste of time. Luckily, ...more
If you're quarantining with other people, consider yourself lucky — but it's not always easy. Staying in one space for so long with too many people can be challenging, so you need to find things to do to make the time go by (and to keep everyone sane). Our advice? Try out thes ...more
Apple released iOS 13.4 to public beta testers on March 18. The update comes the same day we learned that iOS 13.4 would be made available March 24. The sixth beta is iOS 13.4's GM (golden master), even though Apple refers to it as "beta 6." Apple released iOS 13.4 to public ...more
The landscape of podcasting has exploded in recent years, with everyone from dedicated longtime podcasters reaching the mainstream spotlight, to traditional media personalities moving from TV, radio, and newspapers to grab a slice of the listening pie. The good news is that th ...more
With all the talk about privacy concerns recently, Google's name keeps coming up because they are a very data-driven company. As an Android user, they know basically everything about you based on your device usage. That can easily scare some people off who are worried about th ...more
There's a whole world of hidden iPhone features you might be missing out on, but this little-known tool for iOS is something you should definitely enable so that it's ready when you need it. Some iPhone apps have audio tools to help you learn how to pronounce a particular wor ...more
The words of three of tech's most important executives in the last 48 hours are providing some valuable insight into the near term future of augmented reality and the cloud infrastructures that support it. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Snap CEO Evan Spiege ...more