Doug Hurley, left, and Bob Behnken after suit-up operations on Wednesday.
NASA
Walking out to wave bye-bye to family and friends.
NASA
After seeing their families for the last time, they will board their trip to the launch pad.
NASA
Their rocket and spacecraft eventually did not fly due to bad weather.
SpaceX
A shot from earlier this year revealing Hurley, in the foreground, and Behnken in the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Yes, those are glasses for the test pilot.
NASA
Hurley has revealed confidence in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 vehicles.
NASA
Cool, calm, confident.
NASA
Soon after sunrise on the morning of February 1, 2003, Doug Hurley waited on the long runway at Kennedy Space Center for a lorry that would never come.
Just just recently finished to ending up being a full-fledged astronaut, among Hurley’s very first jobs was acting as a “Cape Crusader” for the corps, implying he watched out for the Astronaut Office’s interests in Florida. On this morning, he became part of a little cadre of astronauts to greet seven returning team members on board the space shuttle Columbia
As he waited, Columbia got into pieces as it passed over Texas and other southern US states along its ground track to Florida. Hurley’s good friends died as their spacecraft burned up and disintegrated during their reentry to Earth’s environment. From the start of his career, then, Doug Hurley profoundly comprehended the dangers of the occupation he had simply entered into.
Cool, calm, and positive
One of the most striking features of Wednesday’s countdown toward an ultimately scrubbed launch of a Team Dragon spacecraft was the self-confidence of Hurley, who will command the mission, and his crewmate Bob Behnken. They are friends, which assists. And both have actually enjoyed space twice in the past, so they understand the drill.
But beneath the pomp and scenario of Wednesday’s launch attempt– behind the shiny Teslas and sleek spacesuits– is the reality that climbing up on top of a rocket is more or less like climbing on top of a bomb.
The Falcon 9 rocket has actually taken off once in flight, back in 2015, and another time on the ground during fueling for a static fire test in 2016.
When SpaceX founder Elon Musk consulted with the families of Hurley and Behnken on Wednesday– each is married to an accomplished astronaut, and each has one child– his message to the young boys was simple: SpaceX would do everything possible to bring their fathers home safely However there are no warranties in spaceflight.
A challenging time
Hurley concerned NASA in2000 He had invested about a decade as a Naval Pilot and embellished Marine fighter pilot. He wanted to fly the next thing, and that meant the area shuttle bus. He was not exactly sure what the future held when he showed up for training at Johnson Area Center in Houston in July. “ The majority of astronauts, when you show up here, you’re just pleased to be on the ball club,” he said. “You’re striving to be called into the big game, so to speak.”
It was not an especially advantageous time to be called to the big leagues. NASA’s astronaut corps had swollen to 150 males and females in 2000, about two-thirds of whom had never ever flown into space. There was a long line to reach orbit. After Hurley finished from “astronaut-candidate” status, the Columbia tragedy occurred.
The area shuttle would not go back to flight for more than two and a half years while NASA investigated the reason for the catastrophe (foam falling off the lorry’s external tank throughout ascent). Additionally, the Bush administration began to consider a post space-shuttle future and set an end date for the lorry to stop zipping the end of the years.
Enlarge/ A younger Hurley on the area shuttle’s mid deck on STS-127 in 2009.
NASA
” All of us who had simply pertained to NASA believed we might not even get an opportunity to fly on the shuttle bus,” Hurley stated. “It was a difficult time for a variety of reasons.”
In the end, Hurley’s effort amazed adequate people to get 2 shuttle flights. He was the pilot on STS-127 in 2009, a complex 17- day objective to set up a Japanese module to the International Spaceport Station. Hurley deftly managed the demanding robotic operations on orbit. To his surprise, he was chosen as the pilot for STS-135 in 2011, the prominent final mission prior to the shuttle bus’s retirement. After that objective, anybody going to the spaceport station for many years would do so from Kazakhstan.
Finding a household
Even as Hurley was getting his first taste of space, he was likewise falling for Karen Nyberg, a fellow member of the class of 2000 astronauts. When he flew in 2011, Hurley and Nyberg had only just recently had a child, Jack. Nyberg, too, was training for her second objective into area– an almost half-year endeavor that she would ultimately undertake in2013 He was simply 44 years old when the area shuttle bus program ended, Hurley believed his spacing days may be over.
” Understanding that was the last shuttle flight, and understanding that Karen was flying less than 2 years later on, I did not really have the expectation of flying again,” he said.
Enlarge/ Doug Hurley, left, speaks to his spouse, Karen Nyberg, and child Jack on Wednesday.
NASA TELEVISION
When he looked so smooth throughout Wednesday’s walkout, it wasn’t simply an act. Hurley is a cool character. Having talked to him a variety of times in current years, I understand Hurley is confident in SpaceX, with its rocket and spacecraft, and the NASA authorities involved. (Jack, too, is a big SpaceX fan). He knows how difficult engineers from the company and NASA have worked to put him on top of the bomb. He understands the dangers, and he accepts them. It’s his job.
He likewise would repeat the last two decades even without the going-to-space things.
” To be quite truthful with you, this is where I fulfilled Karen,” he stated of NASA.
There are still a lot of secrets, however the pen-toting phones are anticipated to have less curvy designs than the S20 series. Samsung also tends to offer a little more performance than the Galaxy S phone from that year, so do not be amazed to see more RAM or possible CPU upgrades.
Samsung in recent years has actually introduced Galaxy Notes in August, with a release a couple of weeks later. With that said, it’s not certain how the pandemic will play into the release. Even if the situation has actually enhanced by August, a splashy launch isn’t likely in the cards– and that’s assuming there are no production concerns.
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The last couple of months have actually been an adventure for a lot of households like mine that are handling work, parenting, and school at house.
We hope our new Chrome OS update can help.
Access to countless helpful extensions
Now, parents can let their children customize Chrome with countless complimentary extensions and styles from the Chrome Web Shop and be more efficient with tools like Zoom and Screencastify. To approve extensions, parents simply need to enter their password on the supervised Chromebook.
Moms and dads can now authorize extensions from the Chrome Web Shop for their kids.
Healthy guardrails for apps on Chromebook
With the current update, moms and dads can likewise set per-app time frame for Play Store apps to handle their kid’s screen time on Chromebooks. This Family Link improvement gives parents more precise control over their kids’ app usage, so kids can strike the ideal balance of time on instructional apps like Khan Academy Kids and video games like Roblox.
Kids will receive notifications associated with per-app time limits set by parents.
Here are some other pointers for using Chromebook as a family:
Visit the revamped ” Kids” tab on the Google Play Shop to find teacher-approved apps for discovering and entertainment.
See Teach from Home for resources on mentor and discovering in the house, and more info about the Google for Education tools your kid might be using in school.
Help your kid discover the fundamentals of digital citizenship and online safety with Google’s Be Internet Awesome household resources and the Interland game
Turn on Digital Wellbeing settings, like Night Light, which changes Chromebook’s screen temperature level to decrease blue light at night.
We’ll be back soon with another highlight reel of current improvements to Chromebook.
(CNN) As several cops firms search for a University of Connecticut student in connection with the killing of 2 individuals and a kidnapping, his family is advocating him to surrender.
Peter Manf … Learn More
The business has been attempting to figure out what to do with Trump’s tweets, which typically vary from incorrect to damaging and abusive, for years.
While Twitter has split down on abuse and prohibited a number of accounts for breaching its policies, political figures are approved more leeway because Twitter views their posts as relevant. Twitter has promised to label tweets from politicians that breach its rules, however obviously it does not prepare to identify the tweets in concern this time around.
All items advised by Engadget are picked by our editorial group, independent of our moms and dad company. If you purchase something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
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(CNN) S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the family of Ahmaud Arbery, informed CNN on Monday that the US Department of Justice is examining the shooting death as a hate criminal offense.
Merritt stated he learned a. Find Out More
Image caption
Howard Jacobson’s parents on their wedding.
The writer Howard Jacobson remembers his mom, who died this month, as if she chose to slip away while everyone concentrated on the pandemic.
My mother died on 4 May. Not of Covid-19 2 days in the past, she grumbled to my sibling of a serious pain in her head, slipped into unconsciousness, and never ever woke. She was97 She died in the chair she chose to her bed. And passed away practically as she had actually lived, unobtrusively, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to be a trouble to anyone.
She was retiring by nature. Exclamatory – she understood how to inform a great story and was never less than flabbergasted by unimportant occasion – but not demonstrative.
She disliked show, never ever wished to be seen complaining – in fact, never wanted to be seen at all – preferred reading to going out, and at any time in her life would not have actually minded had she been informed she ‘d never ever go to another silver wedding, golden wedding event or barmitzvah, another Market Traders’ Dance, another Manchester and Salford Cab Driver’ Ball, another Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the Magic Circle Annual Supper, ever again.
In this she could not have actually been more unlike my father – the marketplace trader, cab driver and magician to indulge whose gigantic social appetite she zipped herself hesitantly into among those cocktail gowns she hated having to obtain from her wardrobe, for fear of finding it too tight, too loose, too low, or too expensive, though he, having actually worked as a tailor in the army, was constantly delighted to make any alteration so long as he might get her to come out with him.
Image copyright Jacobson
Image caption
Howard Jacobson’s moms and dads, Anita and Max, on a night out in1964
He too passed away as he lived, with razzamatazz.
He treated his death as his swan-song, his last ever variety performance, strictly for one night just. In truth it went on for longer than that, partly on account of the relationship he delighted in with the nurses in his hospital ward to whom he enjoyed revealing his techniques, even those that routinely misfired.
On what we thought would be his final day his favourite nurse asked him to reveal her the technique with the glass, the playing card, and the engagement ring – on this celebration hers. This was among his regularly misfiring techniques, but today, wonder of miracles, he performed it with such adroitness and eclat that he couldn’t think about any factor not to go on living.
So what was implied to be a program in one act all of a sudden had a period and a 2nd half – the Resurrection – which he dipped into house for a more three weeks, to a smaller sized audience, it held true, but a cherished one. For an encore, worn out by his own vigor, he closed his eyes.
Image copyright Jacobson
I don’t believe my parents turned into who they were in contradistinction to each other – she quiet due to the fact that he noisy and vice versa. It was my impression that they discovered and enjoyed each other as they were and as they would go on being – as unlike as two mortal souls could be.
If I wanted to please my dad I could do no much better than make my mom laugh. It overwhelmed him to see tears of amusement spring out from behind her glasses and roll in gushes down her cheeks. It was as though they originated from some secret location of sensation he might never want to penetrate.
His own laughter was Falstaffian. Which, for her, opened a door on an over-the-top world of boisterousness. His antecedents were Russian, my mother’s Lithuanian. She ‘d have studied music and philosophy had her grandparents remained in Lithuania. He ‘d have wrestled bears.
Image copyright Jacobson
Image caption
Howard Jacobson’s daddy.
Every talent has its disadvantage. I recognise this in myself and try to listen when individuals inform me theirs.
My mom listened hard and felt our adversities as though they were her own, however mothers who fret overmuch for their children as often as not cause those kids more stress than they spare them. I went to bed in distress when I was small, persuaded I would find her dead with concern in the early morning.
Image copyright Jacobson
Image caption
Howard Jacobson with his mom.
Extraordinary that she lived to 97, and in her final weeks implicated me of being a worrier.
” That’s rich coming from you, Ma,” I stated, advising her of all the preventative measures she ‘d taught me to take over the years against finding myself in the Great Australian Desert without toilet paper, or up a five sounded step-ladder without a harness.
Listen to Howard Jacobson remembering his mom on BBC Sounds
My bro as soon as informed her he had actually simply moved into a little flat in Notting Hill, sharing with six ladies who were nurses and art students.
The phone burned with humiliation in his hand.
She warned me against ladies too, though more subtly than this, in the type of poems that told of female derangement, such as the Woman of Shalott going round the bend in her tower, or the Forsaken Merman’s better half who just upped and left him when she heard the church bells ring.
Image copyright Jacobson
One poem my mom got me to check out, and I don’t remember its author, told of a son seduced by a female so vicious that she asked the young male to show his love for her by cutting out his mother’s heart and bringing it to her in a casket.
No pressure there, then, as people didn’t say in those days.
My mother always said she didn’t desire any difficulty when she went.
Image copyright Nathan Romburgh
When a health emergency prompted Nathan Romburgh and his sisters to look into their family history, decades after completion of apartheid, they revealed a closely protected trick that made them question their own identity.
Legendary star, writer, and comic Fred Willard died on Friday at the age of 86.
He may be best known to 2020 audiences for his role on Modern Household, where he played Phil’s dad Frank. But Willard has a long history in Hollywood, including a lengthy and creatively productive relationship with mockumentary master Christopher Guest.
Willard’s profession started in the New York City funny scene of the 1950 s, where he initially went far for himself as one half of a comedy duo along with Vic Grecco. He later on carried out with Second City in Chicago and co-founded the improv funny performers, Ace Trucking Company, which logged numerous appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
Willard’s profile had only grown by the end of the ’70 s, when a role on the funny series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman landed him a starring role (along with Martin Mull) on the spin-off Fernwood 2 Night, and a couple others that followed.
All of which is to say that Willard was already a widely known name amongst funny lovers by the time he made his very first huge splash in the Rob Reiner-directed mockumentary This is Back Tap, which was co-written by Guest. He then went on to appear in Visitor’s biggest subsequent hits, consisting of the pet dog reveal farce Best in Program; the folk music riff on Spine Tap, A Mighty Wind; and the homemade regional theater send-up, Waiting for Guffman(to name a few).
He had roles in the very first Austin Powers, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, and Anchorman On TELEVISION, his credits include appearances on The Bob Newhart Show, Laverne & Shirley, Married … With Kid, Household Matters, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Mad About You, The Simpsons, and Modern Family(among lots of others).
Willard kept working right up to the end. He will next appear in a recurring function on Netflix’s upcoming series Space Force, from Steve Carell and Greg Daniels (of The Workplace and Parks and Leisure fame).
A large neighborhood of friends, fans, and coworkers stepped up quickly to commemorate Willard on social media in the hours after his death, credited to natural causes, was confirmed
How fortunate that all of us got to take pleasure in Fred Willard’s presents. He is with his missed out on Mary now. Thanks for the deep belly laughs Mr. Willard. Best in Program (7/11) Motion Picture CLIP – Judging the Hounds (2000) HD https://t.co/wPrbk9VjWI through @YouTube
One of my favorite lines in a motion picture ever was delivered by Fred Willard in BEST IN SHOW, after a naughty pet went after the judge: “He went after her like she was made from ham.” This man was so fantastic and he elevated the flicks and TV programs in which he popped up. RIP, Funny Man! https://t.co/jEmDS0T9n8
There’s a joke in my family about the time when I—all of 19 or 20 years old and living in an apartment with my own kitchen for the first time—emailed my dad to ask him, “What’s a marinade?” To this day, I also still have a copy of the very kind, very detailed instructions he sent me for how to make mashed potatoes.
“If they appear too stiff (like paste), add a touch of milk,” he wrote to me. “By that, I mean no more than a couple of capfuls—just enough to get it wet. Add any additional milk sparingly, because once it’s in there, you can’t take it out, and you don’t want runny potatoes.”
This is an important part of parenting that can often be overlooked—we need our parents to raise us to be able to go out on our own and function in the world, but once we leave home to do just that, we realize there are loads of little skills we still need to learn. What do you do when your faucet leaks or your car battery dies or you have to hand-wash a shirt for the first time? If you’re lucky, like me, you call your mom or dad. But if that’s not an option, the “Dad, how do I?” guy is trying to help fill the gap.
Rob Kenney told Shattered Magazine that his own father abandoned him decades ago when he was a teenager. He started his “Dad, how do I?” YouTube channel in April as a way to help and support young adults whose parents are absent from their lives:
“My goal in my life was to raise good adults,” Rob said. “I never wanted to be wealthy. I never wanted to be necessarily successful. My goal in life was to raise good adults—not good children but good adults—because I had a fractured childhood.”
Once he accomplished that goal in his 50s, Rob realized he still possessed a lot of wisdom, learning and insight—useful tools for the younger generation. Rob always wanted to make a series of videos detailing important lessons not taught in high school—lessons like ironing a shirt.
Kenney has posted about a dozen short video tutorials so far, on topics ranging from personal hygiene to minor car and home repairs. Here are some of my favorites:
Kenney also likes to throw in a good dad joke on occasion, such as during the “how to use a stud finder” video, which he opens with this line: “Okay, so today, I’m going to show you how to use a stud-finder. If you came here looking for help finding a boyfriend, that would be a different ‘stud-finder.’” An excellent dad joke, that.
He is also disarmingly genuine, which is likely why the comments under each video are filled with touching stories of appreciation from viewers who lost their own parents at a young age—or are estranged from them—and were never taught some of the basic skills Kenney is trying to impart. One commenter described him as “the Mr. Rogers for adults that we didn’t even know we needed.”
Kenney releases a new “How To” video every Thursday and has announced he’ll soon start a “Tool Tuesday” segment, in which he’ll highlight different tools and their uses.
All of us utilize our phones for a ton of regular jobs that require a few actions to execute. If you’re going to video chat a family member you may have to find the video app on your phone, tap to open it, then scroll through your contact list to find the person you want to talk to.
For the majority of us that can all occur pretty quickly, however for individuals with cognitive impairments or an age-related cognitive condition, keeping in mind all those steps– even simply three of them– can be a little an obstacle. And for those with minimal mobility, carrying out 3 touchscreen presses essentially indicates a procedure that’s 3 times as difficult.
When set up, those faster ways will be able to handle all 3 steps of that video chat formula discussed above, or anything else– making performing everyday jobs easier for those who may have problem with the standard procedure.
Buttons can be developed for any action that Google Assistant can typically perform. That indicates it works for things like taking a selfie, sending out a text, putting a video call or perhaps managing clever home devices like a connected thermostat.
Gif: Google
The app itself is simple to comprehend and has shortcuts on the very first page to assist you efficiently established buttons for typical actions. For more complicated procedures, “Develop custom-made action” will assist you establish a button to make it occur; onscreen guidelines can assist you establish practically any faster way you want in seconds.
It’s worth noting that given that Google Assistant can manage all the same things, it may be worth teaching the individual whose phone you’re including these buttons to how to use that. That stated, Action Blocks can be an effective tool to make common tasks easier for anybody who needs a bit of extra aid.
Image caption
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is considered the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.
Dr Saad al-Jabri, who assisted hinder an al-Qaeda bomb plot against the West, got away into exile 3 years back, ahead of a purge by the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
” Omar and Sarah were abducted at dawn on 16 March and taken out of their beds by about 50 state security officers who got here in 20 automobiles,” states their bro, Khalid al-Jabri.
The Saudi authorities have actually not reacted to the BBC’s requests for comment on the claims made by the family of Dr Saad al-Jabri and those who worked with him.
Image copyright Al-Jabri family
Image caption
Khalid al-Jabri (left) thinks his sibling Omar (ideal) has been taken hostage by the state.
Who is Saad al-Jabri?
For many years he was the right-hand male, the gatekeeper, to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was commonly credited with defeating the al-Qaeda insurgency in the 2000 s. He was also the linchpin in all Saudi Arabia’s relations with the “Five Eyes” (United States, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) intelligence firms.
In 2010 this important link “conserved hundreds of lives”, according to a former Western intelligence officer who dealt with him.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen had smuggled an effective bomb on-board a freight plane bound for Chicago, hidden inside a printer ink toner cartridge. But Saudi intelligence had a human informant inside al-Qaida who offered the tip-off to MI6, even relaying the serial number of the gadget it was concealed in.
British counter-terrorism police then situated and pacified the bomb inside the plane at East Midlands Airport. “If that had actually gone off as planned over Chicago hundreds would have been eliminated,” stated the previous intelligence officer.
” Dr al-Jabri changed Saudi counter-terrorism efforts,” says another previous western intelligence authorities.
” He changed it from being a crude, violent, confession-based system into one that used contemporary forensics and computer-based data mining.
“He was the smartest guy we dealt with amongst so many others who were dysfunctional,” he says.
Image copyright Bandar al-Galoud
Image caption
Saad al-Jabri (circled around) was welcomed already UK Home Secretary Theresa May (best) during a see to London in2015
A quiet-spoken guy with a doctorate in artificial intelligence from Edinburgh University, Dr al-Jabri rose to the rank of cabinet minister and held a major-general’s rank in the interior ministry.
However in 2015 everything changed. King Abdullah died and his half-brother Salman ascended to the throne, appointing his young and untested child Mohammed Bin Salman (called MBS) as defence minister.
MBS then purchased his nation’s forces to intervene in Yemen’s civil war, a move opposed by Dr al-Jabri who mentioned that there was no exit method. More than 5 years later Saudi Arabia is still looking for an escape of the pricey stalemate in Yemen.
Image caption
Sarah al-Jabri is also being held incommunicado.
” He can’t afford to have that guy as a free radical and a galvanising force versus him,” states one of them.
His household state they have actually attempted in vain to satisfy the Saudi authorities “on neutral ground” and have actually now decided to go public.
” There are signs that Dr Saad is being targeted with a large range of threats and the (Canadian) authorities are taking it seriously,” states his boy Khalid.
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It was supposed to be a magical destination wedding. Jenny Cooper and Sean Steuer, who live in Los Angeles, had invited 120 people to join them at the Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta in Mexico—an all-inclusive resort with five infinity pools, a swim-up bar, and entertainment that includes folkloric dancing and acrobatic performances.
Cooper’s mother had bought 100 glow sticks for a neon “our love shines bright” welcome party. Guests were being told the wedding was at the hotel, but on the morning of, they would be instructed to gather in the lobby. A chartered catamaran would whisk them away to a private island where they’d watch the couple exchange “I do’s” in a “tropical, bohemian paradise” with lanterns and torches illuminating the beach. Then they’d all hit the dance floor, accompanied by fire dancers and drummers.
Pre-pandemic, the plan was to do a “legal wedding” in town on March 28, with their upstairs neighbors and best friends, Christi and Jack Scott, as witnesses and Christi’s father, Pastor Phil Aijian, as the officiant. Puerto Vallarta would be the big show where they exchanged vows in front of a large group of family and friends. But then the novel coronavirus started creeping across the globe.
First, older family members began canceling their plans to attend. Then Australia closed its borders, which meant Cooper’s brother, Harry, would be unable to join. By the mid-March deadline for the final hotel payment, more than half of the guests had dropped out. The clothiers making Steuer’s tux and Cooper’s dress suspended production, and the jewelry shop that had their rings shut down. Steuer and Cooper made a mad dash to their county courthouse to obtain a marriage license the day before it closed.
At that time, says Cooper, they felt like “virus be damned, we are still going!” By March 18, though, the May wedding was obviously off. No one was going to Mexico. The glow sticks could maybe be used for something else.
So when it became apparent that their dream ceremony was off the table—far into the foreseeable future anyway—Steuer and Cooper regrouped, determined not to allow anything stop them from becoming Mr. and Mrs. Steuer. “We are both in our mid-thirties, so we knew we didn’t have the luxury of time to postpone the marriage until next year before starting a family,” says Cooper. “And who’s to say if the situation with travel and gatherings will be different by then?”
When they announced that Mexico was canceled, Steuer and Cooper were flooded with responses like “We will have margaritas on May 5th in honor of you both,” and realized they didn’t want to say “I do” without the company of their “beloved gang” in some capacity. They decided then to shift gears, keeping their Cinco de Mayo wedding date and finding a way to stream the ceremony. Christi Scott’s father was even still willing to marry them in person. (They assured the pastor they would social distance during the ceremony and put tape on the floor to mark where he would stand, six feet away.) This meant they now had a month and a half to put together a virtual wedding that would be (almost) as fun as an in-person celebration on a secluded beach, accessible only by boat.
Cooper and Steuer are, of course, not alone. About 450,000 weddings were planned in the US between March and May, says Jeffra Trumpower, senior creative director at WeddingWire, which pairs couples with wedding vendors. “Couples have gotten creative in the ways they’re honoring their original wedding date,” she says. And companies have gotten creative in how they serve those would-be newlyweds.
Simply Eloped has launched a virtual wedding package, and for $200 it will provide wedding planning assistance, a virtual officiant, advice on obtaining a marriage license, and tech support. For $800, Wedfuly will run your Zoom wedding, coordinating “guests” on up to 1,000 devices. Add-on options include virtual wedding photographers ($400), custom virtual backdrops, ($75), and virtual live music ($200). They can even hire your favorite musician to perform or celebrity to officiate (price TBD).
Wendy Kidd, a wedding planner with Each & Every Detail, says her company has always offered livestreaming services for couples, but they’ve mostly consisted of an occasional grandparent FaceTiming in. If a spouse had a large extended family overseas, they might commission a proper livestream, but that was rare. Now she’s building on that experience to help Covid-19-era spouses virtually broadcast their nuptials.
Steuer and Cooper aren’t hiring a service. The groom is a tech ops specialist at Netflix; the bride owns a vintage-trailer bar company, and when the world is not in the middle of a mandated “stay at home” order, pours signature cocktails at weddings and events around Los Angeles. She’s crafty, he’s a techie—they were born to do this! But first they must figure out how to keep their camera from overheating and turning them green, dodge neighbors throwing water at their drone, and save the bride’s parents from almost missing the ceremony.
March 22: The Decision to Go Virtual—and to Go Big
Guests have been asking if they can still see them get married, and Steuer knows he can make it work technically, so they decide to livestream the wedding. “We may not be able to hug our parents or do the conga with our best friends, but knowing they are here—even if ‘here’ means using the power of daisy-chained Jabra pucks and a high-quality PTZ camera—means the world,” he says. But in pivoting from a Mexican beach to life under lockdown, Steuer recognizes this has to be more than just him and his bride standing before a propped-up iPad. Visions of multiple camera angles, mood lighting, and a full-on virtual DJ-fueled dance party with guests joining in from their homes, swirl around in his mind.
That night, Cooper can’t sleep so she uses an app called Canva to create an invitation mocked up to look like a Netflix menu. The copy: “When a deadly virus sweeps the world, Jenny and Sean are forced to cancel their dream wedding and find an alternative way to celebrate their love with their friends and family.”
March 23: The More the Merrier
Cooper posts the invite in a Facebook group for brides to see if others are planning on going virtual. “It had a huge response,” she says. “Lots of congratulations and support. Lots of ‘Well done for letting love win’ kind of comments. Some logistical questions like ‘Do you already have your marriage license?’ ‘How are you going to set this up?’ ‘What platform are you going to use?’” This confirms her enthusiasm. She ends up inviting a few curious brides to watch her wedding livestream.
March 24: Actually, for Some Guests, a Virtual Wedding Is Better
A virtual wedding means guests can now attend with their plus ones—or twos or threes. So those who weren’t able to travel to Mexico are officially back in.
Hannah Cookman, Cooper’s oldest friend, couldn’t make the in-person wedding because she was worried about how Zika would affect her conception plans. Now she can “wear her best dress” and dance along with the couple in “a living-room disco for two.”
Nigel Cooper’s father-of-the-bride toast will include jokes like: “Good news! There’s a free bar. You know where the fridge is.” Of course, it’s going to be hard to gauge the crowd. “I’m not expecting to get any feedback on the day, as everyone’s mics will be muted so I don’t think it will be much different than my dry run, which feels very weird,” he says.Courtesy of Nigel Cooper
Steuer’s college friend, Derick Tekus, was planning to go to Mexico, but without his family—too expensive. Now everyone can attend. “We are going to ‘beach up’ the house,” he says.
The groom’s mother, Patricia Steuer, who had been advised against traveling to Mexico by her oncologist, was dreading breaking the news to the couple. Now, she’s thankful she’s able to participate. She and her husband bought a special backdrop to hang behind them during the ceremony, and also ordered a custom cake inscribed with the bride and groom’s names and wedding date to eat at home in Reno, Nevada.
“Everyone is thrilled to have something to look forward to and to celebrate,” says Cooper, who calls this “a big silver lining in what could easily be described as a very shitty situation.”
March 26: The Venue Decision: Apartment or Backyard?
The couple has to choose between their apartment or a friend’s backyard overlooking the ocean. “Obviously the second option would be preferable, but we have more control over the tech from our apartment,” Steuer says. Having the best AV experience possible is his goal. Cooper jokes that since the wedding has gone virtual, he’s so excited about getting to use his cameras and gadgets that he has all but taken over the planning, so the apartment ultimately wins.
They’ve hired a professional DJ service to emcee and help with muting and unmuting guests so that a drunken cousin doesn’t accidentally talk over their vows. They’ll use hue light strips to create ambiance and will station multiple cameras and iPads around the room so they can capture different angles; Steuer hopes to edit this footage into a keepsake wedding video.
March 28: Guests Get Their Instructions
The duo sends out a “We Have a Plan B” email, which directs guests to visit their newly revamped wedding website. They have written a full explainer on the virtual wedding, the technology behind it, and the run of show—ceremony at 1 pm Pacific time, followed by tequila and toasts, followed by a “Turn up the volume on your laptop and let’s boogie” dance party. They joke: “Let’s just hope we are still talking to each other after six weeks of quarantine.”
April 3: Saying Yes to the Dress … Again
Cooper’s dress company announces on Instagram that they are shipping. Should she wear the dress in her apartment, or save it in case she and Steuer have a “real wedding” down the line? Her cousins convince her to wear it, arguing that saying vows in front of one another is “as real as it gets.” Cooper says this is the moment when the virtual wedding became very real. “It was an ‘Oh wow, we are really going to do this?’ moment.” Guests can wear whatever they like, from “posh frocks and hats,” (Cooper is originally from the UK) to “beach chic.”
April 13: The Location Is Set
Over Zoom, Cooper and Steuer give me a virtual tour of their Culver City apartment as they transform it into a wedding venue. Cooper is crafting wreaths for a backdrop. (She’s way Pinteresty and is spray-painting hula hoops in rose gold and wrapping them with fake greenery and flowers she uses for decorating her trailer bar.)
Cooper moves the camera over and shows me the dining room, which will be converted into “a mini-Mexico” cake-cutting station. We pass by their couch, which she says will “somehow get shoved into the bedroom” to clear space for a dance floor. Guests’ faces will be displayed on the living room’s 85-inch television.
A fancy Sony A7iii camera is on order—it should provide a better viewing experience—but Steuer is worried that neither it nor the cord needed to connect it will arrive in time. “It’s definitely a nonessential item to FedEx,” he says. Cooper tells Steuer, “I don’t want Zoom bombers at my wedding!” He laughs. Not on his watch! He wants his buddy’s drone to fly by for balcony shots. Cooper playfully rolls her eyes. Meanwhile, she’s trying to convince him to take a virtual dance lesson.
April 15: Call With the DJs
Rob Corrall, of Second Song, is eager to DJ/emcee his first virtual wedding. He will be live from his garage on May 5. His colleague, Ralph Bracamonte, will Zoom in for technical support. All are in agreement that Zoom is the platform of choice—everyone Zooms. But how will Corrall transition from the wedding area to the reception area? Different cameras? Separate Zoom links? Can Corrall pin the “reception” location so that guests will be able to seamlessly transition? He assures everyone he’ll figure it out.
April 16: Cooper Zooms With a Makeup Artist Friend
“Really she had to teach me from the ground up because I do so little makeup normally, and never have shown much interest in learning before,” Cooper says. She sends her friend, Dominique Desveaux, a few pictures for inspiration, but Desveaux tells her the images she sent were heavily Photoshopped and that approximating these looks would be unrealistic.
While Cooper recognizes that “a more dramatic look would have probably more impact over Zoom,” it was important to her to feel comfortable. So she opts out of heavy eyeliner and false lashes. They also go over the importance of lighting. (Cooper orders a Selfie Ring Light immediately after the Zoom session.)Courtesy of Jennifer Cooper
April 17: Bachelor Party Planning
Steuer is planning the bachelor party with Scott, who lives with Christi and their daughter, Skylar, in the apartment above. Steuer and Cooper have been sticklers about social distancing and these are the only people they see in person: Cooper has been helping Christi and Jack with childcare since Christi had to return to work as a therapist for Kaiser.
Steuer wants to play the Magic: The Gathering card game in unison with his friends and rig up cameras to peer over their decks. Scott teases him: “This is your perfect scenario. I think you’re enjoying getting married in a pandemic more than not. You love solving problems through technology.” Steuer goes through more of his ideas for distributed deck cameras, to which Scott jokes, “I think your bachelor party is going to be a complete glitchfest.’”
At one point, Steuer thinks that maybe they could use the drone to take photos of them on the balcony post-ceremony. But when the pair goes out to practice, the apartment building’s residents feel like they’re being spied on, and a frazzled neighbor storms up to the roof to protest the intrusion. (“Just wanted to say it’s a little weird,” he says.) Another neighbor splashes water up from below.
Video: Jack Scott
April 21: Facebook Live Has a Freakout
Cooper has offered herself up as a virtual wedding guinea pig and invited industry friends, wedding planners, and brides considering livestream weddings to tune in to her ceremony via Facebook Live. For some reason, Facebook Live keeps cutting out after five minutes and Steuer adds it to his list of things to troubleshoot.
April 23: A Bad Hair Day
Cooper reconnects with her makeup artist friend Desveaux. The bride-to-be tells her pal that she found an “easy” hair tutorial online, texts a picture of her failed attempt, and tears up, admitting she had “a complete meltdown” over her lack of hairstyling skills. She typically wears her hair in a ponytail or a messy bun and is trying to master a more involved updo. It came out looking like a nest. “People always say they felt the most beautiful on their wedding day, and right now I feel like that’s not how I’m going to feel at all because I can’t do my hair,” she says.
Desveaux asks if she’s sure the virtual wedding is the route she wants to take, to which Cooper replies: “This is our moment for now, and so I want to make the most of it—go all out, as far out as we can go from our apartment.” She admits that she’s reached the point where it’s time to change her expectations. “Things aren’t as they would be if it was to be a traditional wedding,” she says, “so I need to let go of that and make the most of the situation that I do have.” Desveaux says she’ll videoconference and help Cooper get ready pre-ceremony. And even if her hair still refuses to cooperate, “I’m sticking a veil on anyway so it’s going to hide anything that doesn’t work out,” Cooper says. They both laugh.
April 25: Testing, Testing ….
It’s the final run through and Steuer is trying to mirror Zoom via Apple TV. “I’m running too much through my laptop and it’s overheating right now,” he says. Zoom won’t allow Corrall to select his DJ speaker. Steuer is still troubleshooting. “The challenge is we are trying to AirPlay it from Apple TV, but it uses a lot of bandwidth so I think we are going to plug in directly to HDMI,” he says. The cable Steuer needs has still not been delivered, and this leaves him pacing back and forth. Thirty-seven minutes into the test, Corrall is still not up and running. Steuer is frustrated because the video feed from his new camera looks grainy. Everyone says they will work out the kinks on their ends and reconvene next week for a final, final run-through.
Cooper and Steuer try to follow a YouTube dance tutorial, giggling when they mess up because the instructor moves too fast. Steuer is Zooming the session with his new Sony A7iii camera and he’s excited about the quality. Cooper puts on the song they have selected for their first dance—Ray LaMontagne’s “You Are the Best Thing”—and they practice their twirling and dipping.
Courtesy of Sean Steuer
One Week to Go
Guests receive an email explaining that they’ll be able to join on Zoom or Facebook Live. Those who haven’t used the platform before are encouraged to “jump on a Zoom call with family or friends to make sure you have the setup you need.” Other advice: Try not to use a phone. “We will have multiple cameras and music and audio inputs, and the output through a phone will not provide the best viewing experience.” In all caps—and red font—they state that their wedding’s Zoom link will be sent out two days before and that guests are not to share this with anyone. “Our Zoom guest count will be to capacity and so we encourage anyone who wants to watch that has not received this email to do so by viewing the Facebook Live stream.” Guests are encouraged to take wedding photos. The email also includes a margarita recipe.
May 2: Simultaneous Bachelor and Bachelorette Parties
Steuer heads upstairs to Scott’s apartment, and the guys log in on separate devices. The majority of the seven participants are clad in Hawaiian shirts. Trying to rig up individual setups for the card game was too involved so they will soon hop into a virtual version of Magic: The Gathering Arena.
The first two hours consist of one friend playing his qualifying levels while the rest of the guys catch up, sip Milagro tequila, and eat pizza. Once he’s done, it’s game on and Steuer is completely in his element.Courtesy of Sean SteuerCooper and her friends set tropical backgrounds for themselves and pour some drinks.Courtesy of Jennifer Cooper
Cooper and her friends play bridal bingo and a high-tech version of The Newlywed Game where they ask Cooper questions like “What would Sean’s superpower be? (He’d like to have the ability to mentally teleport Cooper’s vintage bar trailer wherever it needs to go. Normally it can be a hassle, she says: “It has a mind of its own and neither of us had towed a trailer before I started this business.”). Toward the end, Cooper’s screen turns green, which worries her. “Well, this can’t happen during our wedding! What if we turn into green zombies?”
May 3: Rehearsal
Steuer had originally planned the hot pink suit for the Mexico welcome party.Courtesy of Sean Steuer
Pastor Phil Aijian joins on Zoom. Cooper, Steuer, and Scott are cheerfully hungover. It’s decided that Corrall will mute the guests 10 minutes before the ceremony. Cooper says “Don’t forget to unmute my parents when you ask, ‘Who gives Jenny away?’” Corrall nominates Scott to switch to “Gallery mode” after the vows so Steuer and Cooper can “wave to their guests.” The consensus on the green-zombie situation from last night is that the camera overheated. “We have extra cameras, a backup lens, and extra batteries,” Steuer says. “But we’re also at the point of if it works, great. If it works at like 50 percent, that’s fine. It still means we get married!”
“Condensing a week’s worth of families getting to know one another into a two-hour event was tricky but entertaining,” says Steuer.Courtesy of Sean Steuer
May 4: The Families Pregame
In Mexico, the plan was for the relatives to have a few days to get to know one another. But since a typical rehearsal dinner wasn’t an option, the Steuer and Cooper clans mingle on Zoom and play a few rounds of “one lie and two truths” and “guess whose hobby.” To make it easier for Corrall to identify family at the ceremony, Steuer helps everyone rename their accounts—finally a wedding where everyone is wearing name tags! Everyone gets a quick lesson in volume settings. “One of the relatives had their mic turned up so loud that any time they moved or said something, it sounded like a gorilla was giving birth,” he recalls. At one point, the camera overheated and shut off—the same “green zombie” ordeal from the bachelorette party. “Hopefully tomorrow it will play nice,” he says.
When the camera overheats, it shuts off and turns Cooper into a “green zombie.” Courtesy of Jennifer Cooper
May 5: The Big Day
The DJs start the session around 12: 15 pm. Bracamonte puts on Ryan Adams’ “When the Stars Go Blue” and kicks things off with some mellow background tunes. One by one, new Zoom windows pop up as guests appear, some in front of “Jenny & Sean” banners, others with beachy backdrops, and almost all with cocktails in hand. The Zoom chat commences with one guest jokingly asking, “When is the buffet open?” to which another replies, “Who knows? But the bar is OPEN!” Some are in formal wear, others in sombreros and shorts. One couple is watching from their hot tub—he is wearing swim trunks and a black bowtie. As the afternoon goes on, they will occasionally pop up on screen bathed in color-changing mood lighting, floating around in the water. A medical worker steps out of a facility in her personal protective gear to watch. It’s 1 pm in California, but people are tuning in at 4 pm on the East Coast, 9 pm in the UK, and 6 am the following morning in Australia.
At 12: 50 pm, guests are muted.
The bride and groom work some pandemic references into their vows. “Here we are on our wedding day… in our apartment,” jokes Cooper. And Steuer says that “53 days in,” quarantine has only further cemented his love for her. Then the newly minted Steuers face the camera to greet their guests.Courtesy of Sean Steuer
At 12: 57 pm, Steuer bends down to adjust his camera angle and checks all his wires one final time. At 1 pm, Cooper walks into view as a string quartet cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” plays. She is stunning in her vintage-lace sheath dress with tassel trim; her hair is up in a classic bun, which looks professionally done, in my opinion, and a delicate veil is spilling down her back. She smiles at Steuer: “We’re doing it!”
Aijian asks Cooper’s parents, “Do you present your beautiful daughter to be married?” Corrall can’t find their Zoom window. Cooper says, “I can’t see them but I’m sure they do!” Nigel and Pam Cooper got kicked off their Wi-Fi and are frantically trying to rejoin. Cooper’s brother, Harry, posts in the chat and asks Corrall to look out for them. They are back before the vows. Whew! Steuer’s parents are asked the same question and pop up on screen to say “We do!”
Brittany Branson, a “live wedding painter,” is Zooming in from her house and referring to a screenshot to paint the couple on canvas. The guests watch her work while Cooper and Steuer pause between the ceremony and reception to sign their marriage license.Photograph: Brittany Branson
People give speeches, a cellist performs Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major,” then 12 relatives sing “Corona Virus Song,” to the tune of “Sucu Sucu,” written by Cooper’s father.
Steuer and Cooper say that aside from the speeches feeling “a little weird,” since people couldn’t see or hear their reactions, things felt pretty normal. “It really didn’t feel that different that our guests weren’t with us. We really could feel the love and their presence through the screen,” adds Cooper.
Then it’s off to the Mexican-themed bar area (which Corrall pins as the featured Zoom window) for tequila and cake-cutting, and the first dance. For the next hour, guests from around the world slow-dance and twerk to everything from “Bohemian Rhapsody” to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.” People move their dogs’ paws to the beat, kids release pent-up energy, and those in solo lockdown clink their wine glasses to the cameras on their devices. From the moment everyone Zooms in, they seem to forget they aren’t there in person and carry on as if they are at a typical wedding, refilling drinks in their kitchens, applauding the newlyweds, and making fools out of themselves on their living-room dance floors.
Essential workers deserve all of the perks that can be thrown their way, and it has been encouraging to see the travel industry is honoring them by offering them free and discounted travel options they can take advantage of right now.
Here are some of the best travel deals for our frontline workers.
Essential workers—nurses, doctors, firefighters, food/agriculture workers, paramedics and transit employees—are being given a special “Choice Cares” rate, allowing them to book up to nine rooms.
To test the offer, I entered a two-night stay, which gave me a room for $88 per night under “best available” option under “select rate.” When I changed the drop down to “Choice Cares-Essential Workers Only,” the rate dropped to $82 per night.
Hyatt is offering their special Friends & Family rate to healthcare workers from now through June 30, 2021. This rate is typically between 15%-40% off the standard room price. Healthcare workers can get the Friends & Family rate at Hyatt’s website or via its Global Contact Centers by inputting the offer code“THANKYOU” and giving their professional credentials.
For example, a two-night stay with an original rate of $139 per night and is $109 with the Friends & Family rate.
The “Holidays For Your Heroes” initiative was created to donate 150 all-inclusive resort vacations to essential workers and their families for future use. Essential workers can be nominated from now until June 30, 2020. Winners will be selected in July 2020 and will receive a four-night, five-day stay for up to five family members at a Karisma property of their choice in the Caribbean or Latin America.
Motel 6
Medical professionals, emergency personnel, first responders, police officers, firefighters and military will be given 20% off their next stay. You must book by May 31, 2020 for travel through June 30, 2020.
Under Playa’s “Heroes Service from the Heart” program, over 30 free vacation packages will be given away to first responders from top travel advisors in the nation. One vacation will be given each day of May, which will include a four-night stay for two, private airport transfers and a $25 excursion credit. The eligible travel dates are from August 1, 2020 to December 15, 2021 at any Playa property, with the exception of “Sanctuary Cap Cana” located in the Dominican Republic.
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
Essential workers can now obtain free Gold Status at Wyndham hotels. Through the Everyday Heroes Initiative, grocery associates, delivery drivers, healthcare workers, truck drivers, warehouse workers, construction workers and sanitation workers can apply online for their reward status.
The status grants you:
Late check out
Preferred room choice
Member services access
Greyhound is giving back
Greyhound’s “Rides for Responders” is giving back to doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, medical technicians, firefighters, members of law enforcement and morticians volunteering to relocate and needing to travel to a volunteer site. They are offering two free one-way Road Rewards tickets to essential workers traveling from their home to a city or town in need of pandemic support.
Include your full name, phone number, email attached to your Road Rewards, Road Rewards number, profession, volunteering city, and intended travel date.
Wait up to 72-hours for the tickets to appear in your Road Rewards account
Airbnb’s going fee-free
From now until May 31, 2020, Airbnb is offering 100,000 essential workers stays without any additional fees as part of its Frontline stays program. Stays listed on the program’s website can be booked by essential workers only and will not include booking fees, cleaning fees or service fees. Additionally, some Airbnb hosts have chosen to offer their homes to first responders are free or discounted rates.
These are strange, scary, unsure times. If one thing is specific, it’s that I have actually discovered a lot about how I desire to live, work, play and socialize. Here’s what I’m keeping once coronavirus lockdowns end.
Connie Guglielmo/CNET.
For the most up-to-date news and info about the coronavirus pandemic, check out the WHO website
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Activities that brought us delight during youth– four-square, puzzles, coloring books and climbing trees– have actually made their way back into our lives.
I, for one, have reconnected with old pals and “mingled” ( essentially, of course) with them more than I have in the last several years.
And– gasp– I have actually read some books for satisfaction, something I have not handled in the last 2 years.
Lots of people, myself included, have actually likewise recognized something considerable: Our lifestyles are not sustainable. Burning the candle light on both ends and fighting burnout each and every single day is not feasible. It’s not healthy. It’s not fun.
The coronavirus pandemic has made that extremely clear. No matter which side of the spectrum you found yourself on– out of work and spending a lot more time at home, or slowed down with much more work– the world halted for everyone in some method, shape or type, and showed us that possibly many of us were not living our lives in the way we truly wanted to live.
Once the world shifts once again, as it undoubtedly will, we ought to hold onto a few of our newly found routines, profound realizations and uncovered pastimes. Here’s what I’m holding onto; I hope you’ll join me or make your own list of practices to keep.
Listening to and honoring your body
While I love a hard exercise, mild movement such as yoga has actually been a crucial method for destressing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Westend61/ Getty Images.
I really love working out: I like pushing my psychological and physical limits, breaking a great sweat and feeling the muscle burn as I approach physical limits.
For the last a number of weeks, I have actually been prioritizing rest days and gentle movement. I still get in a good sweat practically every day, but I also make sure to move more gradually— I go on walks, take breaks from work to stretch for 10 minutes and try to end the majority of nights with a gentle yoga flow.
Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images.
Because of life plans that were in place before the coronavirus pandemic exploded in the States, I occurred to be in my childhood house when things shot through the roofing system. When shelter-in-place orders entered into effect, I was with my mom, my stepdad and my more youthful sibling.
In the beginning, I felt some small inconveniences– I needed to account for other people being around all of the time and bend my work schedule in ways that didn’t constantly feel ideal, when I was utilized to surviving on my own.
But I quickly recognized how fortunate I was to be here with them. I had all the conveniences of house; I had individuals to speak with; I had home-cooked meals, household game nights and numerous wine-induced laugh fits with my mommy, who is one of my friends.
Had I been in my home throughout the country when coronavirus insaneness took place, I would have been ravaged. I would have been lonely and frightened. Yeah, I’m an adult safeguarding in location with my moms and dads– and I would not have it any other way.
Staying connected to old buddies
Social distancing, believe it or not, has in fact led to a boost in the number of times I talk with old pals. I hope this keeps going strong after coronavirus.
Scott Stein/CNET.
I’m pretty shy, so initially, the stay-at-home order didn’t bother me much in terms of the absence of socializing In fact, some of my first ideas were, “Hey, this implies I will not have to state no to occasions I don’t wish to go to.” Which made me really pleased.
But a number of weeks in, I realized that even as an introvert, I needed a minimum of some social interaction. I got on a number of FaceTime and Zoom calls with buddies I had not spoken with in months or perhaps years, and it was great. A glass of white wine and some old stories can apparently keep me occupied for hours!
I’ve liked catching up with old pals, even in a completely virtual manner. I actually wish to carry this habit over into the post-coronavirus world, and I hope all of my pals do, too.
Setting work boundaries
Working from home presents lots of difficulties and sometimes makes it harder to set work boundaries. That’s something I’ve been dealing with during the coronavirus pandemic, and wish to get better at that in time.
Sarah Tew/CNET.
As a lifelong overachiever and perfectionist, setting work borders has always been tough for me. This was true even in high school, when I operated at a Smoothie King in my hometown. My friends and household were frequently bewildered at the number of hours I worked in addition to school and sports.
I worked a lot throughout college, too, and still do in my early adulthood. I’m a yes-person, so stating “no” to anything, particularly work projects, is not a strength of mine, even if I do not actually have time to handle anymore work.
But the coronavirus taught me the dangers of continuously accepting more than you can deal with. After a while, burnout is unavoidable and it can take a while to recoup from that.
I have actually needed to practice setting limits during this time, especially with the included mental weight of a global pandemic, and I’m difficult myself to keep making wise work decisions when life returns to “typical.” For me, that suggests saying no when I can’t handle a brand-new task, requesting for help when I require it and being clear about my limitations with others.
Getting outdoors
Getting outside for exercises and strolls has made a substantial distinction in my overall mood and well-being.
James Martin/CNET.
I’ve constantly loved spending quality time outdoors and working out outside There’s just something about fresh air and sunshine that makes me feel so happy (and it’s not placebo). Not only is the sunshine vitamin (vitamin D) good for your mood, it’s helpful for your immune system, too
Throughout the coronavirus stay-at-home orders, I have actually taken almost all of my exercises outside, other than for when it’s raining– previously, I spent those 60 to 90 minutes in a gym. That extra hour or so alone has actually improved my mood and general wellness profoundly, however to intensify the benefits (and beat boredom), I’ve also been adding more time outdoors with day-to-day strolls.
As much as I enjoy the neighborhood at CrossFit health clubs and having a room loaded with fitness devices at my disposal, I may be among the converts who switches to at-home exercises even when health clubs and physical fitness studios resume, entirely for the benefits of sunshine and fresh air.
Trying to take control over things during the pandemic has actually made me seem like crawling into a sweatshirt sometimes. So I decided I would have to stop trying to be in control all of the time.
Francesco Carta/Getty Images.
If the coronavirus pandemic taught me one thing, it’s that I directly up can not manage whatever in my life.
When the coronavirus scenario initially began magnifying in the United States, I stressed over every little information.
Eventually, I understood that level of control merely can’t exist since the coronavirus pandemic has left so much unknown at all times.
Uplifting scenes of coronavirus solidarity worldwide
The info contained in this post is for educational and informational functions just and is not meant as health or medical guidance. Always speak with a doctor or other certified health provider concerning any questions you might have about a medical condition or health objectives.
The majority of my household lives in Colombia, South America, and video calling has been a life-changing method for my father and grandparents to view my children mature. Recently, video calls have also become the only method for my daughters to see their grandmas who live nearby. The physical separation has actually been hard for all of us, Google Duo makes it much easier to let family understand how much we miss them, reveal off our newest art work and just act silly together like we would in person. Last month, we revealed new functions on Duo to assist you stay linked, and today I’ll share updates that make conversations with loved ones even more unique.
More enjoyable with the household with family mode
Our brand-new family mode lets you doodle on video requires everybody to see and likewise shock them with enjoyable results and masks that change you into astronauts, cats and more. Just start a video call, tap the menu icon and after that tap Household to get started. You don’t need to worry about unexpected mutes or hang-ups because we have actually hidden those buttons while you’re playing together. This brand-new household mode is offered when signed into Duo with your Google account. As always, calls on Duo are end-to-end encrypted and stay personal in between you and your liked ones.
We hope these features help you better get in touch with your nearby and dearest, and likewise bring a bit of enjoyable to your conversations.
For individuals who don’t have Pictures or a Google account, you’ll still have the choice to share an album with them utilizing a link. You can allow and disable link sharing as you want, and Google offers you the choice to choose whether other individuals can contribute material. When you remove somebody from an album, any photos and videos they contributed to it will disappear also.
As previously, Google states the brand-new performance isn’t created to replace the chat apps you already use. Nevertheless, it hopes the function will enhance “sharing memories with your loved ones in Google Photos.” The company says it will present direct album sharing to all users over the next week. As usual, often these things can spend some time, so be patient if Photos still defaults to link sharing.
All products suggested by Engadget are chosen by our editorial team, independent of our moms and dad business. Some of our stories consist of affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we might make an affiliate commission.
By the end of March, things were looking good for the group video chat app Houseparty as quarantined young people, perhaps put off by Zoom’s relentless security failures, were looking for a less corporate-seeming platform to keep in touch with friends and family. Vogue gushed that it was “the quarantine app you need to download immediately,” as daily downloads for the Epic Games-owned app approached 150,000 on Apple’s App Store.
But very quickly, things got weird. One by one, users started claiming on social media that after downloading the popular app, they had found bizarre purchases on their bank statements, or that their email had been hacked. “Everyone delete the houseparty app now,” one tweet reads, “hacked into my account and spent money on Bet365, Dominos and Porn Hub Premium, absolutely devastated.”
Epic Games responded forcefully and unusually, alleging that these rumors amounted to a paid commercial smear to harm Houseparty, announcing on their Twitter account, that a million-dollar bounty was being offered to “the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign.”
With no hard evidence to corroborate the hacking rumors, the media largely forgot about this bizarre episode. However, a new report by Zach Edwards, the founder of the analytics firm Victory Medium, may shed some light on what actually occurred. The report alleges that rather than corporate sabotage, the hacks were of Houseparty’s own making—negligence that resulted in a vulnerability that left hundreds of thousands of people exposed to scammers trying to harvest credentials and credit card information.
In a detailed post on Medium, Edwards tells the story of a global hacking group that allegedly commandeered dozens of domain names belonging to Houseparty, using them to host dozens of malicious PDF files, that, if visited, would redirect unsuspecting Houseparty users to fake services that attempted to extract their credit card information and credentials.
According to Edwards, Epic Games played down the presence of the malicious PDFs found behind their subdomains, claiming that Edwards’s concerns were purely “theoretical.” Yet, there is no question that these dozens of malicious PDFs existed, still appearing in cached Google Search results for anyone with an internet connection to find.
Edwards submitted his findings through Epic Games’ HackerOne bug bounty program. In response, Edwards said, the company denied that “our environment was compromised.” Instead, the company said, according to Edwards, that “that the subdomains in question were pointing to abandoned DNS records, which in turn were automatically inherited by a third-party which was hosting eBooks.” In other words, because the company was no longer using the IP addresses the scammers hijacked, it wasn’t really Houseparty’s problem—and not a “targeted compromise,” as the company reportedly put it.
Gizmodo reached out to Houseparty and did not receive a comment before publication. However, a spokesperson told the Register, “The world trusts Houseparty to connect them when they need it most and we won’t let them down. We received the individual’s correspondence attempting to claim the bounty and thoroughly reviewed it to confirm that it was not founded. The individual has not provided a proof of concept for his theoretical bug, which is required by all bug bounty programs. The Houseparty app is safe for use on any mobile device and is protected by industry trusted encryption, so your data and your experience are protected.”
The scheme employed by the hackers is known as subdomain hijacking—and in theory, it worked like this: At some point, Houseparty registered dozens of subdomains ( eg; subdomain.thehousepartyapp.com ), likely for internal use, to host some kind of mundane web-based services. While the services were in operation, the subdomains were registered to the IP addresses of virtual servers that Epic Games leased from a hosting provider. Once Houseparty no longer needed these services, they stopped leasing space on this virtual server. However, because their subdomain continued to be tied to this now-liberated IP address, hackers were able to opportunistically seize it for their own purposes, in this case hosting malicious PDFs meant to entice users to sign up for fake services with their credit cards, according to Edwards.
The network of sites that Houseparty users could have been redirected to were largely websites promising “Free Media / Downloads / Books / Movies etc,” according to Edwards. Their design and copy, though quite basic, could easily have fooled less technologically savvy Houseparty users, who perhaps while looking for an e-book, stumbled upon these seemingly Houseparty-affiliated sites.
Edwards refers to the group responsible for the hack as the “Pickaflick.com Crew,” prolific credit card scammers associated with more than 8,400 sabotaged PDFs across the internet.
Edwards claims that once he notified Epic Games of the vulnerability, they promptly deprovisioned the hijacked subdomains, telling him that they were “implementing further tooling to address retired subdomains,” stressing, again, that the subdomains in question were not hosting Epic Game’s content. Even still, it appears that as these hacking allegations were circulating, dozens of Houseparty’s subdomains were linked to servers that the company didn’t control, leaving unsuspecting users vulnerable to credit card theft.
In response to this story a spokesperson from Houseparty sent Gizmodo this statement: “We recently received a correspondence attempting to claim a bounty on an alleged exploitation of a website associated with Houseparty. The report was not made in accordance with responsible disclosure rules as defined on HackerOne here, so the originator was ineligible for a bounty. We immediately investigated the claim and determined there was no evidence users had been harmed. At the time, we were already engaged in an independent security review with the cyber security experts at FTI Consulting and Yonder. To date, none of the internal or independent investigative work has uncovered evidence of exploitation of our network or platforms. Houseparty is guarded by industry trusted encryption, so your data and your experience are protected.”
Updated at 4: 45 to include a statement from Houseparty.
This was the very best projector we found for under $2,000 and I still would not advise it over a TELEVISION for the majority of people. Image: Raul Marrero (Gizmodo)
In the previously times, one concern would usually arise in the office kitchen area as my coworkers put kombucha into a coffee mug while eyeing my pure cold brew: “What projector should I get?” Now, in the middle of the worldwide pandemic, it comes through text, DM, and Slack message, with more urgency. My answer to these colleagues of mine (and loved ones members, too) has actually been and constantly will be the same: “Do not buy a projector.”
Let me say that again, but with considerably more punctuation so you know I’m major:
Do. Not. Buy. A. Projector!!!!
The factor for wanting a projector is always the very same. The person seeking advice lives in a smaller house or apartment or condo, in which area is at a premium. They don’t desire the eyesore of a big black box on a credenza or mounted to the wall. They want something active, smooth, and quiet.
But this thinking is wrong and developed on a bed of lies and misunderstandings.
Misconception # 1: The Projector Does Not Need a Screen
One big factor people seem to discover projectors appealing is that you do not need a screen– in theory. You can just point the projector at a big blank wall and enjoy a 100- inch picture every bit as great as what I get on my 65- inch OLED.
This is incorrect.
Photo: Raul Marrero (Gizmodo)
A projector is a source of light shining through a filter and a lens which is then tossed throughout an area onto a surface area which shows back onto your eyeballs. That reflection is essential. Bouncing the light from the projector to a surface area and then back onto your eyes scatters a lot of the light. Any additional light, state, from the sun, a lamp, and even a phone, spreads the light even more. Your reflective surface has to be as effective as possible and decrease the scatter of light. Many walls, about 99 percent of them, just aren’t reflective enough. They have nooks and crannies that hold onto light rather of showing it back. That’s why casting a projector’s image onto a bare wall results in a blurred and faded photo.
You require a screen to effectively show the light back into your eyeballs, and there are various sort of screens constructed for various environments. If your projector is in a brilliant, sun-dappled room, you’ll require a lot more reflective screen than if the projector is in a basement devoid of all light. The least expensive screens– the ones that are barely a step above your wall– start at $100 A great screen will cost around the same as a nice TV. Which’s prior to you enter into the cost of the projector itself.
Misconception # 2: The Projector Will Save Space
Lots of people assume that a projector is a sort of like a Murphy bed: It takes up space when completely established with a screen, but can be hidden when not in usage. I assume that misconception originates from using projectors or overhead projectors in school, when an instructor would wheel out a little cart and pull down a little screen, and then put everything in a closet when not in usage.
However if you’re seeking to save space, wheeling around a projector on a cart doesn’t really work for your house. Personally, I ‘d rather save precious closet space for shoes and boxes of gadgets I’ve accumulated over the years.
An alternative approach is to just put the projector on a shelf, which truthfully looks like it would be simply as much of an eyesore as a big TV is. If your projector is likewise attached to gadgets like a set-top box, game console, or Blu-Ray player, forget it: That’s a great deal of gadgets and a lot of cables to have on racks!
Another choice is to mount the projector to your ceiling. This is ideal, and frequently the method projectors are set up by expert installers. However professional installation expenses countless dollars. If you’re trying to save money (presuming you are, because you’re attempting to predict an image onto a wall instead of buying a TV), you will instead have to install it alone. The end outcome will be cables that dangle below your ceiling like the tentacles of a cyber squid, or they will need to be handled by bolting them to the ceiling and wall.
If you’re a tenant, that looks like a bad plan if you want your down payment back. And even if you own … that’s just a great deal of work.
A TELEVISION, alternatively, can be set on a credenza, its lots of cables tucked within in a matter of minutes.
Misconception # 3: The Projector Will Produce a Better Image
Projectors can produce an incredible picture. I’ve seen some genuinely wonderful images displayed on high-end projectors, and there’s a factor they, and not OLED Televisions, are the display screens of option for abundant people constructing house theaters.
The reason that a great projector costs a lot goes back to how a projector handles light compared to a TELEVISION. Televisions normally utilize great deals of small LEDs to produce the light, giving the TELEVISION pretty outstanding control of the brightest and darkest points in the image displayed.
A projector normally uses a giant lamp to produce the light, which indicates less control. That changes when you increase the budget and relocate to laser projectors, which have as great, and generally finer, light control compared to a TELEVISION. Which brings us to …
Misconception # 4: A Projector Is Cheaper
As we have actually talked about when dealing with misconceptions 1 through 3, a TV is always going to be less expensive and supply a much better image for the cost than a projector. Projectors may develop an excellent photo, however that requires investing a great deal of money.
Myth # 5: I, Catie Keck, Reporter at Gizmodo, Insist That a Projector Is Better, and You, Alex Cranz, Are Wrong
Honestly, the inception of this blog site came from Catie mistakenly boasting that the projector she got from an old roomie is better than the TV I spent money on.
I do not want to knock complimentary stuff since when it’s free it’s constantly, considerably better. Consider if your projector was not complimentary, Catie? Think about if you ‘d in fact invested money on it. Would the fans impersonating a jet engine as they try to cool the giant lamp be sonorous to your ears? Would you genuinely like needing to keep a hundred inches of wall bare so you belong to point it? Would you truly love having to turn you home into a dank cave each time you wished to enjoy The Suite Life of Zack and Cody? Does loosing an entire rack to a projector and its accoutrements actually fill you with joy, Catie? Truly? Like in your soul?
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