The widely used expression "free as a bird" intimates an enviable existence: delicate, yet mighty wings transporting to destinations no human could so breezily venture. But despite their fanciful, superhero ability, in truth, the avian race leads one of the most difficult exis ...more
So, you've made your first zine. Now what? That depends on a couple things: How large of an audience are you looking for? Will you be making a series of zines or just one? If you're looking for a local audience, your best bet is to do the leg work yourself. Go to your local ...more
WENDIGO n pl. -GOS windigo 62 points (12 points without the bingo) The WENDIGO (or WINDIGO) is a malevolent creature from the mythology of the Algonquian, one of the most populous and widespread Native American language groups, which includes such tribes as the Innu, Ojibwe, ...more
Advancements in technology usually lead to the miniaturization of old technologies, and video games are no exception. Since at least 1990, game hardware manufacturers and enterprising DIY electronics enthusiasts have poured their efforts into making full-size video game consol ...more
Making bread from scratch is extremely difficult. Painstakingly following instructions does not necessarily guarantee successful results. Baking delicious homemade bread takes practice, skill, and frankly, a level of real culinary artistry. Enter the no-knead method. First po ...more
Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of ...more
You're walking down the street, minding your own business. Then you see it—a large, bright fireball in the near distance. A tremendous heat wave speeds towards you at one thousand miles an hour, and before you can think, before you can even blink, the extremely heated wind pus ...more
Huzzah! My sentences have been recorded! This is normally the most exciting part of beginning a language with this method, because you actually had another person do something for you that is really of great value. I remember receiving my first recording in Japanese. I listen ...more
Beauty and The Beast The Japanese word yugen connotes the sense of subtlety as it relates to beauty. According to Donn Draeger, author of many books and articles on the history of Budo, the definition of yugen includes such ideas as “suggestiveness,” “charm,” and “dynamic sti ...more
Wondering why your inbox is looking a little threadbare? It may be that you've violated a few unwritten rules of email etiquette. Here are a few basic tips that the web-savvy know by heart. Use "Reply All" Sparingly Let's begin with an example. Say that your boss emails a ne ...more
Tis’ the season…for weddings! At the beginning of October, three of my college pals got married on the same day. This meant a ton of planning, parties, and presents for these three lucky ladies. This also meant that there were many a brides maid needing to make sure their brid ...more
We are embarking upon a new year. As usual, some of us will make "resolutions." There isn't anything wrong with setting goals for the year. It's actually a good idea. It may help focus the energy we bring to life. A karateka may be excused if he or she makes only one resolutio ...more
To some, SCRABBLE is just a board game to play during family game night or during a casual get-together. Others think of SCRABBLE as a mere hobby. But with any activity, there will always be fanatics—the ones who would rather sell their soul than stop—the ones with a constant ...more
QI and ZA. QI n pl. -S the vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things ZA n pl. -S a pizza For over a decade, these words have been used in SCRABBLE play, but not in the US or Canada. It wasn't until their addition in the Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionar ...more
Label Profile: Night-People [Night-People founder Shawn Reed, playing live in Montreal as Wet Hair] By Jenn Pelly MP3: Ela Orleans: "I Know" MP3: Cellophane Spill: "Zaj Mak Ta" If you really want to get inside the mind of Night-People founder Shawn Reed, start with his we ...more
My JO was watching The Simpsons on FOX the other day, like she wholeheartedly does every evening, and I joined her, much like I always do— though I must admit, I'm not as obsessed with the cartoon family as much as she is. Just like she isn't as obsessed with SCRABBLE as I am. ...more
Johnny Knoxville is booked as a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Unbeknown to Ferguson, the producers are in cahoots with Jeff Tremaine & Knoxville. A mystery stooge is placed in the audience to be brought up at the beginning of the show as every once in a whil ...more
The biggest problem with Netflix (which is hardly a real problem) is the overwhelming amount of content available for streaming. Browsing through profile-specific categories might help narrow down your search on something to watch, but some of those categories come and go with ...more
WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the commu ...more
Yuto Miyazawa kicks ass at electric guitar. Seriously, this kid is out of this world. What other nine-year-old is invited to perform Crazy Train, on stage, with Rock-n-Roll God Ozzy Osbourne? Named the "youngest professional guitarist" by the Guinness Book of World Records, Y ...more
Of all the places you'd think to check for bed bugs, I doubt that library books would be at the top of your list. As odd as it sounds, though, libraries and library books are some of the most common places for bed bug infestations. Libraries all over the country have reported ...more
If print is a dying media, you might as well destroy books in the most beautiful way possible. Guy Laramée is a Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist who turns old books, such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, into intricately-carved works of art using mostly a sand blaster a ...more
Many people that I know who have gone to see the Hobbit have come back unimpressed or annoyed with the film. I LOVED it. When those non-specific people, cough Loziers cough, gave me their reasons for not liking the movie, I was very annoyed... I considered the demands that the ...more
From the first moments of booting up Harry Potter: Wizards Unite to the hours of walking you're bound to experience, one thing is clear — encountering Foundables and defeating their Confoundables is a significant plot point of the AR game. While you receive rewards each time y ...more
Before I get ostracized by all of you whisky lovers who live and die by whisky served neat, let me say my piece. In the past, I haven't been much of a whisky fan—I would shoot it back or add it to Coke or ginger ale, but I certainly wouldn't sip on it and enjoy it. In fact, t ...more
Steampunk music is an oft-debated genre, full of bands playing all sorts of different sounds. While this can make it difficult to generalize about the genre as a whole, it means that the average person is bound to like at least some Steampunk bands. That's why it's a great ide ...more
What is it about the fantasy of the treehouse? Escapism. Other worldly, bird-like elevation. Beauty and peacefulness. Backwoods simplicity (although in some cases, truly elaborate works of fine architecture). Whatever the draw is, I'm dying to have my own treehouse in the wood ...more
Using breadcrumbs in the kitchen is the perfect way to add crisp and crunch to the usual salad, entrée, or dessert. As chef and media personality Mario Batali once said, "There's almost nothing I wouldn't put homemade breadcrumbs on." Making crumbs themselves is just plain ea ...more
Parlez-vous français? While we all wish we were fluent in multiple languages like Jason Bourne, most of us are probably one-trick ponies. When traveling abroad, or even when taking language courses, having a translator handy is extremely important. You can buy one of those hu ...more
Steampunk is a tremendously interesting phenomenon because of its reliance on science fiction, and fiction in general. Steampunk can arguably be broken down into two categories: the fiction, and the aesthetic. Sometimes these categories cross over, but they're often more disti ...more
One of the things that sets a seasoned hacker apart from the script kiddies is the ability to effectively sneak past antivirus defenses when executing an attack. One way to do this is to use custom shellcode in an exploit. Not everyone is an expert at writing shellcode, but lu ...more
When most people say, "Damn, look at that rock," regarding an engagement ring, they're usually not referencing an actual rock—let alone a space rock. One Reddit user, chadmanx, decided his future fiancée was so special that she deserved the moon and stars, or, at the very lea ...more
By combining years of web search advancements, natural language processing, and even DeepMind's artificial intelligence, Google Assistant hopes to change the way you interact with your devices. If you're familiar with Google's previous services, Google Assistant is like Google ...more
Avocados have been the darling of the food world for quite some time now—so you'd think that we might have already exhausted the ways in which to enjoy this amazing fruit. Don't Miss: 10 Stuffed Avocado Recipes to Die For But a Dutch food blogger is taking our avocado to th ...more
While a hot dog with all the typical American condiments (ketchup, mustard, relish) is heavenly for kids, as an adult, I realize there is nothing wrong with switching things up a bit and getting creative. In fact, a plain hot dog can be a fantastic blank canvas for chefs to wo ...more
Look, I'm no food snob. I once dedicated an entire day to eating only deep-fried things (butter, Twinkies, Oreos, pickles) at the Minnesota State Fair. But even I draw the line at instant mashed potatoes. I mean, why bother? It's not that hard to make perfectly delicious and f ...more
Gamers, anime fans, and those with an interest in Japanese culture are in for an AR treat courtesy of Google. On Tuesday, the company added 14 3D renditions of popular Japanese characters, headlined by pop culture icons Pac-Man and Hello Kitty, to its roster of augmented real ...more
It feels strange to be walking through an open field in a small village in the English countryside. There's no one else around — just the four of us: me, my husband, my 12-year-old son, and my adult niece. The day is spectacular, particularly for England. The sun is shining, a ...more
I am very new to Null Byte but I find much of its content and community incredibly interesting. I spent quite a bit of time just chronologically going through the posts and I noticed a common theme in many of the beginner posts. Many people seem to want to know the 'secret' or ...more
It's easy to take the food we eat for granted, but the truth is, there are a lot of bizarre, wonderful, and just plain weird things about what we eat and drink, the effects it has on our bodies, and vice-versa. Read on to learn how bugs provide food dye, the Japanese grow squa ...more
Eating vegetarian isn't just for vegetarians. There are plenty of reasons, health and economics-wise, to consider forgoing the meat for a meal or three. Rather than get deep into the world of fake meat (although there's many a tasty alternative to be found there, to be sure), ...more
In recent years, Hollywood has taken a shine to hackers, with hackers appearing in almost every heist or mystery movie now. This can be both good and bad for our profession. As we know, whichever way Hollywood decides to depict our profession is how most people will perceive i ...more
This is a simple pattern, designed to produce a well-fitting mitten. Both the right and left mittens worked the same up to the shaping for the top of the mitten. A slight adjustment for making one right and one left, then they are worked the same. The gusset for the thumb cons ...more
The iOS App Store is a big place, offering over two million applications in total. However, there are actually some apps you can and should install on your iPhone that the iOS App Store doesn't include. And no, these apps do not require any difficult jailbreaking or complicate ...more
While iOS 11.3 doesn't have as many new features as iOS 11.2, there's still a lot to love about Apple's latest update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, even if some of the best features we were expecting didn't make the cut. Apple released the iOS 11.3 beta on Jan. 24, and ju ...more
It hasn't been long since Apple released iOS 16.0 with over 350 new features, but iOS 16.1 just came out with even more cool updates for your iPhone. While some of the recent upgrades were expected, others are somewhat surprising — and there's even one that you may not even th ...more
While it doesn't come with any iPad models out of the box, the Apple Pencil is perhaps the best iPad accessory you can get. It's a powerful writing and drawing tool with an intuitive design and user-friendliness that makes it easy to take notes, draw sketches, mark up document ...more
The new iOS 14 for iPhone arrived Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2020, alongside iPadOS 14, and there are a lot of features to uncover. Improved widgets. Better home screen customization. Exciting Messages improvements. New abilities in Camera and Photos. There's so much here that it'll ...more
Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to ...more
There have been concerns with how much personal information Google tracks and all the things they know about us. Of course, that's what makes Google services so useful, they can use that information to cater to each of us individually. So yes, it serves a purpose, but it's not ...more
Andre was enjoying the carefree life of a 12-year-old with his friends, riding his bike and playing sports, like all kids that age. Schoolwork wasn't hard for him, and his grades showed that. Then, the headaches began. He lost vision in one eye, symptoms that drove his famil ...more
When you encounter a mysterious laundry care symbol or alarming vehicle indicator light, you might just ignore it rather than ask somebody, search online, or open a user manual for the answer. If you have an iPhone, there's an easier way to decipher the meanings behind perplex ...more
If you haven't been using Spotlight Search on your iPhone, we've got ten reasons for you to start. Apple's made some significant improvements to the search interface available on the Home Screen and Lock Screen, and it's more useful than ever. The new features and updates for ...more
When you take a photo of something interesting, like a landmark, piece of art, animal, or plant, there's a good chance you'll also want to know more about that something than just what you see in the frame. When this happens, you can take advantage of Apple's content recogniti ...more
When you see foreign words on a sign, unfamiliar currencies on a dinner menu, or a recipe using a different measurement system, there's a good chance you google it for a translation or conversion. Your iPhone's Translate app comes in handy for real-world language translations, ...more
Why are there no official Star Wars emoji in the Unicode Standard? We've got the "Vulcan Salute" from Star Trek, so where's the force choke hand gesture?! While you may never see Star Wars officially invade your emoji keyboard, there are ways to send Star Wars emoji and sticke ...more
There have been third-party iOS apps for live conversation translations, and Google Assistant pushed out its own feature for iPhone last year. Still, iOS 14 now has a default translator for real-time multi-language talks in person. So you can finally chat with people who use a ...more
Apple just seeded the fourth public beta for iOS 13 to software testers today, Tuesday, July 30. AppleSeed participants saw this beta one day early, alongside the release of developer beta 5. Now, developer and public testers alike are up-to-speed with the latest in iOS 13. B ...more
Beta testing for Apple's big upcoming iPhone update, iOS 13, is well underway. So far, each of the four beta versions we've seen brought new features and changes to the table, many of which were never even mentioned by Apple during WWDC in June. Now, it's time to do it all ove ...more
Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for An ...more