I've installed VLC on every computer I've owned for the better part of two decades, and I still recommend it to all my family as the default for playing media on a computer. It's incredibly simple, self-explanatory, and offers some level of customization if you need to go deeper. So when I say I've stopped using it on my own desktop, I don't mean VLC got worse, but I found an alternative in mpv that's still based on FFmpeg, asks a bit more of you, but gives you a ton of control in return.

If you're looking for something simple to build, you can't go wrong with the humble Pomodoro timer. They're easy to make, simple to code, and once you're done, you have a nice little desk companion to help you stay productive and focused. Plus, the components to make one usually don't break the bank.

Saving things for a civilization living in the year 3,000 is pretty tricky. Ensuring that whatever you're preserving manages to survive for a millennium is hard enough, but then you have the issue of telling the people of the future what, exactly, they're looking at. Ideally, you need to set up a Rosetta Stone situation, where people can reverse-engineer what you want to tell them.

If you’re as big of a smart home aficionado as I am, you’ve probably run into gizmos that left a sour taste in your mouth. Take Belkin’s Wemo lineup, for instance. Despite the cool smart devices in this series, Belkin’s decision to discontinue the product family effectively rendered them useless to folks without dedicated Home Assistant or HomeKit setups.

Obsidian's true utility lies in its plugins. While the app is powerful on its own, the community makes it something special with the incredible range of functionality added through the plugins. In my search for a useful, efficient way to track tasks and to-do lists, I discovered Operon. It's a relatively new Obsidian plugin, but the developer has already released many updates that have built upon and expanded the previous versions in big ways.

Ever since I got fiber internet, I've used the router my ISP provided for the longest time because it was included with my plan and I never had a reason to replace it. After all, I didn't want to spend money on a new router and go through the hassle of setting it up myself. However, as newer wireless standards became available, such as Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, I started wondering whether I was missing out by sticking with older hardware, especially when my ISP began advertising better routers for new connections.

When the new-generation Steam Controller was released, the asking price of $100 was perhaps a little on the steep side. Despite that, people have been snapping them up en masse, to the point where Valve is having issues keeping in stock. In response to the shortages, Valve has added a little tracker to let potential buyers know when they can expect their controllers, and it looks like getting your own this side of 2026 is a bit of a pipe dream.

Regardless of whether you love playing or making indie games, there's a very good chance you've come across Godot before. It's an open-source game engine that allows anyone to download, build, publish, and play at no additional cost. However, as you might imagine, it doesn't quite have all the flashy features of something like Unreal Engine.

A desktop PC has a few USB ports on the rear of the system, be it a custom DIY build or a prebuilt turnkey model from the likes of MSI, Asus, Dell, and other vendors. But some may not know that a PC will have a USB header or two inside the chassis. Turnkey systems may have one or none, depending on the model and price, but almost all consumer-grade motherboards purchased standalone will have at least one USB header, though usually more. The primary use for these is to connect USB ports on PC cases.

When Colin Farrell was doing press for the first season of the detective series Sugar, he had to be very careful with how he spoke. Sugar is a story about a quirky private detective, but it's also secretly a work of science fiction, something that doesn't become clear until halfway through the season. "I knew that I could get the show in deep shit if I revealed certain things," he tells me. Now as Sugar heads into its next season, which starts streaming on Apple TV on June 19th, Farrell says he feels "unburdened" by the previous veil of secrecy. "There are certain things I wouldn't mention here about season 2," he says, "but nothing as big a …Read the full story at The Verge.

Five months after returning to OpenAI, Barret Zoph - the company's head of enterprise AI sales - has departed, The Verge has learned. Zoph returned to OpenAI in mid-January after a stint as co-founder and CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, the competing AI company founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Shortly after Zoph returned to OpenAI, the company said he would lead its push into enterprise - a significant role at OpenAI, since in recent months it had vowed to stop chasing so-called "side quests" and focus on key revenue drivers like enterprise and coding ahead of its planned IPO. OpenAI confirmed to The Verge that Zoph will be depart …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Strato E player (here with a Mini Terra Prime server on top of it) is smaller than a Blu-ray disc collection, but you can get a lot of 4K discs for $3,000. We've lost something in the past 15 years. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple; they've all convinced us that streaming is the best way to watch movies and shows at home. With everything at our fingertips, there's no need to run to Blockbuster for the weekend's entertainment, or wait for a DVD rental to arrive in the mail. And going to the movie theater is a luxury - one that keeps getting more expensive.But we were, all of us, deceived. We traded quality for convenience. And while TVs have improved drastically, we feed them inadequate, bitrate-starved, internet-throttled streams that won't let our fancy screens show their full potential. Blu-r …Read the full story at The Verge.