Update Chrome Now

If you haven't updated Chrome since Thursday, update it now. Google on Thursday released security updates to patch 12 vulnerabilities, including one that has come under active exploitation in the wild.

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The "Catch" That Didn't End the Game

With two out in the ninth inning, this "catch" would have ended the game. You've got to feel for this guy, but given the playoff wild-card picture in the National League, any loss by the Padres is a welcome sight for the Phillies.

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Trump's Arch and a PS

Excavation work on President Trump’s 250 foot-tall arch in Washington, is expected to start over the next two weeks. The arch would sit between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island. “This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Thursday on social media. If you don't want it to be built, worry not: The project, one of Trump’s many so-called beautification projects in the nation’s capital, is facing litigation. Opponents have argued Trump needs congressional approval to build it. The triumphal arch would block or disrupt the sightline of other monuments, critics have said. Oh yeah, that's what they said about the ballroom.

PS: The one gratification to look forward to is when Trump is gone, as is done in countries everywhere when a corrupt self-aggrandizing leader is out, is watching the horrendous monuments and all the other such stuff being torn down and all the gilded stuff being stripped away.

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Geopolitical Risk Canary in a Gold Mine?

I thought I was the only one, when it comes to protecting one's assets, has been worried about geopolitical risks. As it turns out, the Dutch central bank shifted the location of 78 metric tons of gold, valued a $11 billion at today’s prices, from vaults beneath the streets of Manhattan to London, saying it would improve the ability to trade the metal in a pinch. The high-security operation took several months to pull off. Some of the gold was sold in the U.S. and repurchased in the U.K. Other bars were flown to Europe, likely in the storage hold of planes. The result: Almost a third of the Dutch gold reserve is in London and a still chunky 19% in New York, flipping their earlier positions. “In view of increasing geo-political unrest, DNB is strengthening its crisis preparedness,” the central bank said in a statement referring to its Dutch acronym. 

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The Toasted Owl (Restaurants in Phoenx and Flagstaff)

Originally one restaurant in Flagstaff, The Toasted Owl now has two restaurants in Flagstaff and two in Phoenix, including one conveniently located at 300 West Camelback Road. It serves delicious breakfast food and lunch food. There's another lunch restaurant in Flagstaff but I can't remember it's name. It's got patio dining and is on a main road.

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Democracy on the Line: Nightmare Scenario

Trump has appealed his ability to stop mail-in ballot voting to the Supreme Court. For procedural reasons there is no way the Court should be hearing the appeal and for substantive reasons the appeal has no basis (indeed, it's frivolous). That said, if anyone believes there aren't 3 votes in the shadow docket in the bag for Trump, they have not been paying attention, and if anyone believes there easily could not be 2 more that would vote in favor of Trump, they have not been paying attention either. Should Trump's appeal prevail, it would shut-down mail-in voting, and that will effectively shut-down voting in a wide swath of states particularly in the West, Southwest, Upper Mid-West, and the Northeast. To stop the vote is to stop democracy. Full stop. The idea that democracy now rests in the hands of 6 Supreme Court justices is nothing short of terrifying.

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The AI Toothbrush: Not a Joke

[Prefatory Note: You might think you know how AI is going to change our lives. This post might lead to your thinking again about the profound changes coming that you did not imagine]

You know about Dyson's high-end, high-priced vacuums for cleaning floors. If you care about your teeth as much as your floors, then Dyson's AI Camerajet toothbrush (priced at about $500) is for you. It’s a camera viewing, gap finding, jet washing, liquid flossing, mouthwash dispensing, technique teaching, live streaming, plaque blasting, precision cleaning toothbrush. As such, it's the only toothbrush with a camera and a jet, to target the gaps and remove plaque between your teeth. I'm waiting for a mini-robot-toothbrush you just drop in your mouth and it zooms around in it like a Roomba zooms around your floors.

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Acer Swift Blade 14

Although not yet available in the U.S. and the pricing has yet to be released (but it could be under $1K), the Acer Swift Blade 14 has risen to the top of my list when looking for a new computer. Although I prefer the black of the LG Gram, the marshmallow blue is distinctive enough, but the real draw is this: Coming in at 1.76 pounds, it's the lightest full-size laptop ever. And it's thin as can be with daunting specs. 

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Get Help for Motion Sickness From Your Phone

As knowing someone who struggles with car sickness, one of my favorite features that launched on the iPhone with iOS 18 was Vehicle Motion Cues. It’s a layer of moving dots that appears across your screen and changes with the motion of a vehicle. Apple says the feature helps reduce the sensory conflict between what you see and what you feel, making it easier to look at your screen while in a car. They’ve definitely noticed the difference when Vehicle Motion Cues is on; they can scroll or read on my iPhone for longer without feeling nauseated. At last, a similar feature is coming to Android. Called Motion Assist, this adds a bubble overlay to your phone’s screen that moves as the vehicle does. As Google put it in a blog post, “It’s designed to help bridge the gap between what your eyes see and the movement of your ride.” You can adjust the shape, color and opacity of the bubbles. You can also set Motion Assist to turn on automatically when you’re in a moving vehicle, and add it to Quick Settings for easy access. Motion Assist is available on phones running Android 17. There appear to be other such apps that run on earlier Android versions.

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Two Tips re Amazon Refunds

Tip 1: When you have the option, take any refund to your Gift account or Amazon courtesy account instead of to your credit card. You will get it much faster, and you will know often immediately but always within a couple of hours (instead) of days whether it actually posted (which is how long it can take for refunds to your credit card.

Tip 2: If your refund was issued to your card, and you don't see it within a few days, don't hesitate to tell Amazon you're tired of waiting, and that you're willing to have the refund issued per the better options suggested in Tip 1. You might then get a double refund (i.e., an addition to your gift card balance and a refund to your credit card), but that's Amazon's mess up and they will tell you to keep both so you need not even alert them

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Easy Ways to Help Avoid Wi-Fi Drops

Wi-Fi drops, especially in the middle of something important, are incredibly frustrating. Simply rebooting your router can fix tons of connection issues. Rebooting resets your router's memory, clears out any temporary glitches, and reloads its firmware and settings. It also releases any unresponsive connections and expired IP addresses that your router's DHCP server might be tracking. You don't have to set a reminder to do this manually, either. Most routers have a scheduled restart setting that automatically restarts the router at a time you specify. I recommend setting your router to reboot late at night when you won't be using the internet. This way, any temporary downtime for your smart home devices won't affect you. For instructions on how to do this for your router, type "auto schedule reboot [router model]" without the quotes into Google. Doing the setting takes about 2 minutes. Some other helpful tips in preventing Wi-Fi drops can be found in this MUO article.

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Things Not to Cook in Cast Iron

Next to our air fryer, our cast iron pan is our favorite thing for cooking. But, while cast iron is tough, some acidic foods will damage it by stripping away the cast iron's surface and even leave an unpleasant metallic smell in your meal. As explained in this cnet article, here are the top offenders which should never be cooked in cast iron: tomatoes; vinegar; citrus; and wine-based sauces. Speaking of wine-based sauces, I almost always cook with wine, and sometimes I add it to the food.

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New Lenses for Your Existing Glasses

Say your prescription changes or you want to change from clear to sunglasses but want to keep your existing frames. If I understand how Overnight Glasses works (and I can't be sure or vouch for them), they will make custom lenses to fit your existing frames. And the prices look great.

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A Plaintiff, a Plaintiff, My Kingdom for a Plaintiff

The stupidity of the Supreme Court's decision, letting the hideous ballroom construction continue, where even Chief Justice Roberts said the project was illegal, and where the Court made no determination on anything, defies credulity. Talk about holding two head-scratching, conflicting thoughts at the same time: The Court had no difficulty saying the plaintiff "might not" have standing because it could not find injury to any plaintiff while at the same time the Court had no difficulty finding irreparable harm to the White House if the project were delayed until the legality of the project could be ruled on. But here's what I really don't get: What makes the project illegal is that it lacks the necessary congressional approval. So, if that's the case, why doesn't any member of Congress (including any single Dem) have standing to bring suit to stop the project.

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A Term Joey Martella's Father Didn't Know and Didn't Teach Us

The term walk-off home run has been around for a while, and other offensive walk-of terms have been added. With two outs in the bottom of the Ninth, and Baltimore leading 2-1, one man on base and the batter facing a 3-and-2 count, this is what a walk-off grab looks like.

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Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Laptop

When my last computer unexpectedly died, I bought a 14" Samsung Galaxy Book 5 because it was the only laptop at Costco or BestBuy that had the specs and a price that were acceptable, and where I could walk into the store and get it immediately. I have come to really like it. The Samsung Galaxy Book 6 just came out and, if I were looking today for a new laptop, it certainly would be one of my finalists. The only complaint I have is that it used to boot up in 18 seconds or fewer ever time, and now sometimes it takes 27 seconds and it's driving me nuts trying to find out why.

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S&P 500 Momentum Index

Momentum trading is based on a rather simple observation: Investments that go up tend to keep outperforming; those that underperform often remain laggards. This kind of trading might seem too simple a stock-picking strategy to work. Yet it often has. Returns can be amplified when investors don't just go long on outperformers, but also short underperformers. The S&P 500 Momentum Index soared 44% in the second quarter, its best quarterly performance on record, and it surged 133% over the past five years, nearly double the broad market’s performance. Alas, as any believer in regression to the mean would have predicted, as this WSJ article reports, suddenly, the trade is a loser. The momentum index has tumbled more than 9% since July 1, lagging behind the S&P 500’s 2.8% gain. The index—which tracks stocks in the S&P 500 based on a “momentum score”—is on track for the biggest quarterly underperformance in 25 years. July was the second worst month for the momentum trade in around 40 years--the only month worse was April 2009, in the teeth of the global financial crisis.

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Cancel for Any Reason Trip Insurance

I cannot vouch for this, but Travel Insured International looks to have a straight-forward way to buy as an add-on 75% of the trip cost where there is interruption for any reason or you choose to cancel for any reason. 

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Microplastics in 3 Things Often Not Thought About

Here are three things that are most likely leaking microplastics into your food:

Tea bags: It may come as a surprise, but microplastics could be hiding in your tea bags. When you brew tea, the bag is exposed to extremely high temperatures that can release its microplastics. This comes from polypropylene, a key component in the manufacturing of tea bags. Researchers at Spain’s Autonomous University of Barcelona found that billions of microplastic and nanoplastic particles are released from a single tea bag for every millimeter of water it is submerged in. Research has shown that a single plastic tea bag can release billions of microplastic fragments.

Certain spices: Depending on how it is packaged, that bottle of paprika may contain microplastics. Many spices today are packaged in plastic, which is concerning because a recent study found microplastics in all plastic containers tested. This can result in food contamination, which has increased in recent decades.

Plastic straws: Plastic straws are especially concerning because studies show that they release microplastics and nanoplastics, which can then be directly inhaled. Unfortunately, plastic straws are extremely prevalent, with about 8 million metric tons of plastic found in waterways each year. Once these straws and other plastics enter the water, they can affect not only the water but also the soil and animals found in or on it.

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Two Simple Windows Changes to Make It Look and Run a Little Better

If you have Windows Transparency or Animations effects turned on, they are doing nothing to make your Windows experience better. Turning them off is simple, and you likely won't notice anything except except perhaps your computer running a little better and faster. Go to Settings/Personalization/Color and toggle off Transparency, and then  go to Settings/Personalization/Accessibility/Visual Effects and toggle off Animation effects.

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