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What you need to know and how you can use it responsiblyIm sure James Madison, the father of copyright law, would have had something to say about Generative AI.Open AI is the antichrist.Thats how a conversation started with a friend of mine in January 2023. He saw the future, and he did not like it. I was living in the future, and saw the benefits.Like any conversation I try to have with my friends, we met in the middle, however uncomfortable it was, and continue to do so to thisday.Here were the positions:As a former journalist, he saw the destruction of content creation, full stop. For some content, he is not wrong. There are particular segments of our workforce that saw the effect that early on, and continue to do so at an accelerated rate.Myself as a former journalist to a lesser degree and working at a document technology startup, I also saw the advantages like transferring some mind-numbing work to a system so people could be more strategic.I walked him back from his initial concernscopyright, bias, privacy and a few other categories listed hereand we agreed that as a domain, legal technology is one of the few use cases where this technology avoids a lot of the challenges.The users utilize it for everything from searching across documents to extracting data from their owncontent.This content is in a private, secure bubble, because its company data it has tobe.Our customers use it responsibly because of who they are: professionals with an eye on the cutting edge yet respecting thousands of years of precedent, and are establishing policies to use the technology responsibly.That last point alone gives me security that everyone will come to their own conclusions about how to use it, but all three validate why so much money is in the document space versus other domains: its one of the few places AI makes sense, and its in a space thats been using machine learning models for years, just not at this level of innovation. Theyve also been doing it responsibly.However, not everyone is there, so you personally have to act accordingly.Generative AI is a tool, a transformation thats going to change our lives, some of it for the better. Like any tool, you have to use it responsibly. Anyone can use a hammer in an irresponsible manner, and the same applieshere.Im going to approach it like Im telling the weather: staying as neutral as possible, but highlighting the concerns that even I have for the technology in the public square. The world isnt a fair place, but you can make it more fair by how you personally act, contributing to a better globalvillage.Its up toyou.CopyrightLets be clear: AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google used a lot of internet content to train their models, so much that theyre running out ofit.Much of it is copyrighted, and they didnt exactly ask permissionI didnt get an email personally for my blog unless it went to my spam folder, as an example. Ive even gone so far as saying that Wikipedia is probably the foundation of it, and without them they would not exist without Creative Commons as the copyright model.This alone is a really sticky legalproblem.Most of the companies are claiming fair use: Section 107 of the Copyright Act defines it as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, [and] research. Its vague enough that it fits the Ill know when I see itmodel.This interpretation of copyright law is something Im fairly sure that James Madison didnt anticipate in 1787 when he was trying to figure out where to put his AOL CD into the horse. Thats a really generous stance and will have to be resolved legally. It will takedecades.We will need new laws to deal with AI and copyright. This discussion will go on forever among technology experts and lawyers as the technology evolves as with previous copyright issues.And its notnew.As a example, they havent really solved copyright issues for social media networksInstagram claims that you are granting license to them so they can use the contentand this been around for decades. Regulations like GDPR (2018) and CCPA (2020) went into effect fairly recently, and social media companies still find ways to live at theedge.Another example? Font licensing to the chagrin of Adobe and other font owners. Most designers dont know that fonts are not copyrightable and the font foundries have been trying to change that foryears.The AI copyright issue will take decades to resolve, and I guarantee almost no one will be happy with the solution, but well live withit.ResolutionThere is no easy solution, especially for content already consumed by the LLMs. Technology companies are going to do what they have always done, which is have a flexible definition of what they can do and we can adjust accordingly (read: Uber) and this is the casehere.The law will adjust accordingly, itll just taketime.How you can use it responsibly is always consider it as a derivative work; I do a pretty heavy edit, or dont use images that look like anything thats been copyrighted. Ill also use it for an edit pass, but never as the corecontent.Data PrivacyAs a repeat of the last copyright, AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic use a lot of information. This sometimes includes details that shouldnt be in the public square, whether it be company data or personal information.Theyre trying to keep private information safe, but in the same way its hard for other companies to secure their system because all it takes is one hole, the same goes for this technology.Theres always some way to unlock technology, and someone alwayswill.This is a problem that will never be unique. Being worried about how Open AI is handling your data is ignoring that there are many companies that have much more information about you, and it is just about as secure. Additionally, theres a lot more more information out there that is public or hidden in plain sighttheres an amazing about of information about companies you can find on the SEC Edgar database, for exampleso even the notion of privacy doesnt apply to public companies bylaw.Data privacy will always be an issue in modern society; its how we approach our perception about it is whatmatters.ResolutionIf you want to keep something private, dont put it on the internet, ever. Its up to you to decide what should be there or not. Many companies are establishing policies around thisone particular acquaintance said they have locked down all corporate systemsand thats a goodthing.Protecting sensitive information is a must during thistime.AuthenticityWhen was the last time I saw a LLM hallucinate?Today.I was walking someone through one of the applications, and entered their name. It returned the information of someone completely different at the company, and returned other incorrect information.This doesnt happen a lot, but it does happen more on content that the LLMs dont have a lot of context for, or theres a lot of matches that it cant line up. For example, an acquaintance of mine has a rather common name and it mixes him up with an actor in England. I dont have that problem except for that pesky Senior Vice President of Finance that Im friends with on Facebook, so its the information that is returned for me is most probablyme.We laughed about it and movedon.When you add that all information on the internet isnt factualyes, there isnt an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus either except on some marketing site selling costumes for bothauthenticity is closely related tobias.Theyre trying to fix these problems, but its hard because the LLMs are designed to predict what words come next, not to know whats true. Neither does Google. About every other search engine thats been invented know whats true without human intervention, either.Weve been living with this for the last 30 years, and will continue to do so. It doesnt seem to affect search engine engagement either.Its really up to us to decide whats right and whats wrong. Search engines return wrong results sometimes, and so do the GPTs. Both are learning to get better, and itll taketime.ResolutionI have told everyone that uses any technology that you should always double check what youre seeing like a journalist: One source is an opinion, but a second reliable source is validation. The same confidence that LLMs return information with is akin to the Google search results, and no one seems to be affected bythat.The resolution: Trust andverify.BiasRepeat after me 100 times: People are biased, so data isbiased.The issue of bias in AI models is part of a larger, ongoing conversation about ethics and fairness in artificial intelligence, but we forget these systems are built byhumans.The reality of the world is that it isnt a fair place, and this is reflected in the data we generate as asociety.For example, the greater predictor of success in your life is what zip code you grew up in, full stop. For the record, mine was 92804I went to Walt Disney Elementary School in Anaheim, California. The only benefit was a free trip in the sixthgrade.This is not a new problemwho can forget when facial recognition software performed less accurately for certain racial groups, or job application screening algorithms favoring particular demographicslanguage models are the latest technology to face this challenge.Efforts to address bias in AI are part of a larger push for responsible AI or ethical AI This movement includes not just addressing bias, but also concerns about AI transparency, accountability, privacy protection, and potential misuse.Its going to take a longtime.ResolutionUntil we have transparency, its up to you. As with anything you see, theres going to be a lens of perception that youll have to view the information with. Youll determine how much bias there is, and you will have to convert it to your own mentalmodel.This conversion is something we all do, every day of theweek.We also have to call for responsible AI. Its important that there is some type of global movement to get there. Itll be people and laws. Amix.ConclusionLike technology solutions beforeNapster comes to mindtheres always a way all of this works through the system to less than ideal solutions that we all accept, flaws and all. Musicians dont like the revenue of Spotify, but they still use it and other platforms.Other examples:Search engines have their flaws and dont know the truth, but theres still billions in advertising revenue generated.Merchants might not necessarily like Amazon, but they accept the platform because of the massivereach.We all will accept the risks of Generative AI once we see the benefits.Its all about responsible usage. We learned from the other applications, and well learn from thisone.We have to approach it from a realistic view of not only how it is implemented, but how it is analogous with the technology issues in the past, and this will help us solve the future, plain andsimple.To quote the movieContact:Youre an interesting species. An interesting mix. Youre capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only youre not. See, in all our searching, the only thing weve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is eachother.Be responsible, Trust and verify. Campaign for change so there are adequate guardrails inplace.In my glass half full thoughts are that well get there, one person at atime.This is the end of my TEDtalk.Other articles worth reading aboutthisDesigning in the age ofChatGPTStriking the Balance: Navigating the Ethics of Generative AI and the Need for RegulationEthical Pitfalls of Generative AIPatrick Neeman is the Vice President of User Experience and Research at Evisort and an advisor for Relevvo. He is also the author of Usability Counts, runs the UX Drinking Game. You can read more about him at Pexplexity, and connect with at LinkedIn, X (Formerly Twitter), Threads and Substack.The ethical minefield of GenAI was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Liminality under fire, and how the Barbie movie took a design page out of the fascist playbook.Barbie wants to be taken seriously. But not literally. Like all aspiring fascists.It was a product of its time. Anno 1959commercial and aspirational. For the very young child, a doll. For the slightly older, an indulgence. It was a cute cliche, but the choice was yoursyou either buy it, ornot.Later, the world of the 1970s turned more culturally complex, new models of the doll adapted: there was a male doll named Ken, and then more professional stereotypes: teacher Barbie, pencil-skirt lawyer Barbie, doctor Barbie, and astronaut Barbie. Still very much a product of its time. Not really feminist, but the idea of work hard and party hard, embraced for both sexes as the idea that the system worked if you got up in the morning and worked hard for it. Naive, but still aspirational.But the world couldnt stop getting more complicated. The absence of a Vietnam Barbie, a hot-looking Terrorist Barbie (Patty Hearst would have been the perfect real-world model, with a full-sized wanted poster for the bedroom wall), or Blacklisted Commie Writer Barbie, Stonewall Barbie, Homeless Barbie (tarp and tent is extra) or Heroin Chic Barbieor why not for gender equality, a Dictator Barbie (Women can do anything!): since the door to differences had opportunistically been opened without any deeper intention, Pandora turned insatiable.But still, if we squinted our eyes, it was still possible to approach the whole enterprise as commercial nostalgia. Or, for the more industrious, we could rip the arms off, give it a Maoist mullet, and blow it up several times with cheap fireworks. The choice was ours. There was room for our own narrative. For imagination and the vastness of stories that were uniquely ours. It was a dialogue with Barbie, and with it, a liminal space opened that allowed us to shape our own relationship with it. You could play a part in the brand and its implicit narrative. Or you could criticize it, or put the doll on fire, and that was still fun too. You doyou.Soon Pandora was roaring with hunger and the new contemporary Barbie models that could be made and perhaps should be made: obese Barbie, handicapped Barbie or the really ugly ethnic Barbie, Proud Boys Ken (sold as outfit only, Ken is the same as always), Karen Barbie (pointing and yelling), hairy lesbian Barbienot many of these inspired Barbie version were actually going to get made. For obvious reasons. But at this point, the innocent past was catching up with an impossible future demanding more than the core commercial construct could uphold for its shareholders. And by now, nostalgia was also tainted and ruled out. There was no longer a way to be a product of ourtimes.Even in June of 2024, as the New York Times reported on the launch of Blind Barbie and Downs Syndrome Black Barbie, the pendulum had swung so far that neither felt any closer to real sincerity or meaningful zeitgeist. What does anything mean when there is no controversy or real cost to be takenits just another philistine cliche that makes money like all the otherones.But thenand even more to the pointthe big-budget Barbie film happened.A last Hail Mary miraculously did find a postmodern play to come say hello again on the silver screen. Not asking for relevancy, as any choiceeven choosing to be meaningfulwas a political minefield. Attention, the real currency, will do. So it made fun of itself and the narrative quicksand it found itself in. Everything got tossed in: the tax evading founder lady, independent female film directors (their version of the useful idiot), patriarchy, trucks, horses (brilliant!), male insecurity, the outdated and already shun role model for young girls, and the real problem with it all: corporate America. All this was cooked up, overproduced, and wrapped in a plot driven by the existential crises that Mattel Corporation felt. Not one that was ours. The snake was feasting on its owntail.At first glance, a brand that makes fun of itself seems healthy. But in this case, it isnt offering to take any of it to heart. Nor any willingness to actually change. Instead, Barbie is the kid on the middle school playground who joins the mean girls in making fun of her as she is stealing lunch money from all of them with bothhands.Worse yet, in its pandering for commercial relevancy, it has chosen a post truth, post shamepost anythingattitude. Its not for its own legacy. But its also not against making fun of the legacy either. Offering anything new to replace the old? Sure, how about a full embrace of large scale pandering beckoning us to be complicit in choosing nothing because anything else is too layered and complex. Because nuance you cant make money on, ha-ha. Its a race to point out what is wrong and turn it into a caricature for self gain. Apex hypocrisy. It doesnt stand for anything other than the hope that we somehow shrug off the self-serving contradictions and open our wallets. And in this sense, yes, Barbie has truly become a product of itstime.The real cost, of course, is that the dialogue that we used to have room for with Barbie is now gone. No matter how we choose to approach, or to distance ourselves from Barbie, we play neatly into their pandering commercial narrative: that we shouldnt care so much about all that big stuff or what it means. So please enjoy the clowns and the spectacle while you can. This is Trump asking Greta Thunberg to chill out and go see a film instead (how perfect!).Sincerity is the real enemy to this commercial narrative, and its first victim. Any space for genuine experiencesthe promise of a liminal space where we can explore friction and juxtaposition at a distance to choose our very own conclusion, has been designed out entirely. Barbie is no longer supposed to make sense because the dictator is not looking for dialogue, but for manifestations of control and your submission. As the film greedily swallowed the last obvious foothold of common sense resistance, it exhausted us to accept what is always the inevitable and complete surrender under any totalitarian ambition as envisioned by Orwell in 1984: to admit that2+2=5.At least a liar has a relationship to the truth. He hides and he evades it. But Barbies complete lack of sincerity is a textbook fascist play that reaches beyond untruths for the post-post-truth marketplace. Its the nightmare suggested by Gilles Deleuze in the Panopticon prison metaphor, where opposition cant find a way to separate itself from omnipresent oppression. We are to take Barbie seriously as customers and part with very real fiat (follow the money!) But we are not to take it too literally, as it no longer stands for anything beyond marketing. All this of course echoes our current corporate and populist political landscape.With her frozen smile and a shiny asexual figure molded by three different fossil fuel derivatives in China and shipped back to us in pretty pink boxes, Barbie shines bright as our epochs intellectual role model for aspiring dictators. Not just a product of our time, but an unimpeachable symbol of our existential future.Johan LiedgrenFounder of think tank The Liminal Circle. Award-winning film-director, writer and consultant working with media and technology companies on liminal and narrative strategy for product design. www.liminalcircle.com / http://www.liedgren.com / https://medium.com/@johan_liedgrenHello, Im Barbie. Or whatever you want me to be. was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If youre looking for the Wordle answer for August 3, 2024 read on. Well share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Todays puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for August 3, Wordle #1,141! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to todays Wordle game.How to play WordleWordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if theyre correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isnt in the days secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)Ready for the hints? Lets go!Does todays Wordle have any unusual letters?Well define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it Edwin Shirdloo, like a name, and pretend hes a friend of yours.)Four of today's letters are from our mnemonic. The other is also pretty common. Can you give me a hint for todays Wordle?A tool you'll find in both the kitchen and the bathroom.Does todays Wordle have any double or repeated letters?There are no repeated letters today.How many vowels are in todays Wordle?There are two vowels. What letter does todays Wordle start with?Todays word starts with S.What letter does todays Wordle end with?Todays word ends with E.What is the solution to todays Wordle?Ready? Todays word is SCALE.How I solved todays WordleI started with RAISE followed by LIGHT, which eliminated common consonants found in possible solutions. SCALE was the best fit. Wordle 1,141 3/6Yesterdays Wordle answerYesterdays Wordle was harder. The hint was a tiny piece that's been peeled away and the answer contained three common letters, one somewhat common letter, and one less common letter. The answer to yesterdays Wordle was FLAKE. A primer on Wordle basicsThe idea of Wordle is to guess the days secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, youll see an empty grid of letters. Its up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word:Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and its in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then its game over.The best starter words for WordleWhat should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, thats still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isnt a single best starting word, but the New York Timess Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:CRANETRACESLANTCRATECARTEMeanwhile, an MIT analysis found that youll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:SALETREASTTRACECRATESLATEOther good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that its better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.How to win at WordleWe have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if youre a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, dont waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldnt have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.Wordle alternativesIf you cant get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after anotherDordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the days solution. Youre required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

AI is being integrated and rolled out everywhere you look in tech right now, and Google is leading the charge. The company is adding its AI model, Gemini, to just about everything it offers, including Google Chrome. Just this week, the company announced three new AI features coming to its web browser, including Google Lens, product comparisons across tabs, and AI-powered search in history. But that's far from all the AI Chrome features in the works: As reported by Android Police, and first spotted by WindowsReport, Google is currently testing a feature that will help you organize your many, many tabs. The feature has been in the works since at least November, although Google first announced it in January of this year following the release of Chrome 121.How to try out AI tab organizer in ChromeTo try this feature out for yourself, you'll need to download Chrome Canary, the version of the web browser where Google tests new features. You can use Chrome Canary as you would Chrome, but know the browser could be unstable, just as any software in beta can be. Once you have Chrome Canary up and running on your computer, sign into your Google Account and enable sync. This is required for this feature to work. From here, you'll need to enable some feature flags, which are settings that turn on experimental features in the browser. Type chrome://flags into the address bar, hit enter, then search for the following three flags:#tab-organization#tab-organization-settings-visibility#multi-tab-organizationClick the drop-down menu next to each, and click Enabled. Credit: Jake Peterson Once complete, head to Chrome Canary's settings, hit Experimental AI, and toggle on Try out experimental features. Here, you'll see a new toggle for Tab organizer. Make sure this this toggle is enabled, too. With all the above set, click the arrow in the corner of the browser window (depending on your platform, this may be in the top left or top right), then choose Organize tabs. Chrome Canary will run you through a few pointers about the feature, including that it uses AI, and won't always be correct. More importantly, the feature needs access to your tabs, page titles, and URLs, which will all be sent to Google. Data generated from this experience will also be sent to reviewers to improve the feature. (No one said this feature would be particularly private.) If you're okay with those stipulations, however, click Let's go.Chrome Canary then analyzes your open tabs, and begins suggesting tab groups you can make. For example, it suggested I round up The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal into a "News" group, complete with a newspaper emoji. If I wanted to, I could adjust this name, but "News" seems pretty fitting to me. To proceed, click Create group, and Chrome Canary moves these tabs into their own group on the left side of the tab row. Credit: Jake Peterson You can repeat this process to keep grouping your open tabs as many times as you like. It seems to work well enough in my initial testing (the feature wants to group any Google pages into a "Google Suite" group) but one change I'd like to see is the ability to run through multiple tab group options at once. It's fine to keep repeating the process, but if I could see a bunch of potential tab groups in one go, I could approve or clear all options quickly, rather than have to constantly click through the Tab organizer option first.

Restarting your iPhone is harder than it should be. Up until iOS 17, you either had to press and hold two buttons to see the power off button, or go to Settings > General > Shut Down. Many, including my parents, found it tedious. Thankfully, someone at Apple appears to have taken the note and made restarting easier in iOS 18. There's now a super-quick way to restart your iPhone, although you'll first need to install the iOS 18 beta (for now).How to restart your iPhone in iOS 18The revamped Control Center in iOS 18 adds an easier way to restart your iPhone. With your iPhone upgraded to iOS 18, open the Control Center by swiping down from the top-right corner of the screen. You'll see a tiny Power Button. Tap it to see a power off button. Slide that to the right and your iPhone will shut down. To restart the iPhone, hold down the power button until you see the Apple logo. Isn't that much quicker than before?Quickly restart your iPhone in iOS 17, tooIf you can't or don't want to upgrade to iOS 18, there's still a trick to restart your iPhone more quickly. There are two ways to do this. The easiest one is to ask Siri to restart your iPhone. It'll show you a confirmation prompt where you can tap Restart to let it do the job for you. The second method uses a shortcut called SCSettings, which makes it easy to access useful iPhone features that are otherwise hard to find. Install SCSettings on your iPhone and add it to the home screen to access this feature. Tap the SCSettings button on the home screen, then from the pop-up, select Restart Device and tap the blue Restart button to confirm. Fortunately, both these methods also work in iOS 18, which make them even more useful.

You can get this 13-in-1 docking station on sale for $44.97 right now (reg. $70) through August 4. It connects to your device with a USB-C cable, allowing you to connect USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB-C, SD and TF cards, Gigabit Ethernet, and 3.5mm aux devices. There are also two HDMI connections that support 4K monitors and a VGA connection, allowing you to add three monitors to your device. You can also use the USB-C power delivery connection to charge a device with up to 100W of power. Since the docking station measures just over five inches long, it wont take up too much space at your desk.You can get this 13-in-1 docking station on sale for $44.97 right now (reg. $70) through August 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

Like many things, the world of cooking has moved on to TikTok and Instagram Reels. Before, you'd go to a website or someone's blog to find recipe inspiration. But these sites are now filled with long-winded stories, ads, and descriptions of the dish, which can make them a hassle to scroll.In these trying times, cooking shows, personalities, and even enthusiasts have taken to TikTok and Instagram Reels for sharing recipes, tips and tricks. Because videos on these sites are only a minute long, the focus there really is on the dish. But here, you meet another problem. The videos are too damn short. And if you're not careful, you'll end up watching the same 45 second video in a loop for 17 times, just trying to figure out how this guy made Turkish eggs for breakfast.Or may be you're like me and my partner, who see all these great recipes on Instagram, save them for later, only to never come back to them. This is where the third-party cooking app Pestle can help.How to save recipes from TikTok to PestlePestle is a recipe organizer that automatically formats any recipe you share to it. This can be from one of those long winded blogs, or a recipe you've created yourself. Now, with the latest update, Pestle is using on-device AI to quickly convert Instagram Reels captions into full-fledged recipes that you can easily follow via the app's step-by-step cooking guide.This will work as long as the recipe Reel has the ingredients list and the recipe steps written in some form or the other in the caption (or contains a link to a recipe). Your source video doesn't need to follow any specific format, which is thanks to the AI. Pestle will run the caption through its system, extract the recipe, and show it to you in a nice format that you can easily follow. The video will be added to the recipe, too. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Because the app is doing this on-device instead of pinging the cloud, the whole process is surprisingly fast. It all happens in just 5-10 seconds, after which your recipe will be ready in the app. I tested this out with five different videos, each with a different kind of recipe caption, and it worked every time.Here's how it works. Tap the Share button from the video, then choose the Share To option. Choose the Pestle app. If you don't see it, go to the More section, then choose the Pestle app.The Pestle app will ask you for a name for the recipe. Once that's done, it will automatically populate the ingredients and steps from the video caption. Go through it to make sure everything looks right. You can also tap the Edit button at the top to add or remove any part of the recipe. And that's it, the recipe will be stored in the Pestle app and you can now make a habit of opening the app every time you feel you don't know what you'd like to make tonight. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Pestle has a lovely interface where it will show you the steps for the recipe in huge font so it's easy to follow along as you cook. A really nice touch is that when an ingident is mentioned, you can tap on it to reveal the quantity as well. For example, in my Turkish Eggs recipe, tapping on the eggs text reveals that I need four free range eggs to pull off this recipe. In the cooking view, you can also switch to an ingredients list and check off items that you've got set for cooking. The app also has a voice mode for hands-free cooking, so you can say things like "Next" to switch to the next step, without even touching your iPhone or iPad.The app lets you store 15 recipes for free, but for unlimited recipes, you can upgrade to Pestle Pro, which costs $1.99 per month or $19.99 when billed annually.

Garlic is a bit of a garden anomaly. Its planted in fall and then hangs out until mid-summer, harvested in time to give you a tiny window to grow something else before fall hits and its time to replant. Still, its one of the easiest plants to grow, with exceptional yields. If youre like me and use garlic all the time, its a crop you should absolutely try, as long as youre ready to give it its own bed.Garlic seed is just garlic cloves Credit: Amanda Blum Unlike true seeds, most people plant garlic cloves to get a harvest of garlic. In fact, if you buy garlic at the garden center, youll notice it looks like garlic you buy in the store. Once you have your first crop, youll realize how cost-effective it is to save a few of the heads you grew, split them up and replant them. Every year you gain more garlic. While you can purchase cloves at your garden center or online, lots of people also plant run-of-the-mill garlic from the store and it, too, has a relatively high yield.When choosing the cloves youll actually plant, you want to choose the best and beefiest cloves to yield the best heads of garlic. As I split up the cloves in the garden, I place the smallest cloves in my pocket, bring them inside and use them for dinner.There are technically two kinds of garlic: soft neck and hard neck. The neck is the stalk that rises through the center of the garlic. Soft-neck garlic has a neck you can cut through, and hard neck doesnt. Soft neck tends to be ready for harvest sooner, and hard neck tends to last longer, once dried. Technically, soft neck garlic is easier to braid into those garlic wreaths you see, but as a seasoned braider, I've done so with hard neck garlic, too (although it's harder to do). I prefer the taste and longevity of hard neck garlic, and while I used to grow a variety, Im now in year three of only growing Music, a common garlic variety. Its reliably produced flavorful heads, and while I sometimes prefer a spicier garlic like a Spanish Roja, the heads they produce are smaller.Garlic needs spacing and good soilGarlic grows over the summer, but you plant in the fall and it remains in the ground over the winter. If you missed the window, you get a second shot to plant it in early spring, but the sooner, the better.Garlic needs loose, loamy, rich soil. Heres where you want to focus on good compost and start with a well-cultivated bed. A slow-release fertilizer is ideal to sprinkle into the soil and work in. Each year, your bed's soil compacts, and you lose some soil as you harvest. Usually you top off those beds with compost. I dont do that, which means my beds are a little low when its time to plant garlic. I rake the bed smooth, and sprinkle on my fertilizer. Then I take my cloves and plant them in a grid, eight inches apart. By plant, I take each clove, still in its papery cocoon, and I stick it into the soil, with the sharp tip up, so it is visible above the soil. This is so you can see where each one is. Then I cover the entire bed with a few inches of compost. I then cover that with a few inches of mulch. (I use wood chips.) How to deter squirrels over winterSquirrels and other animals arent particularly drawn to garlic, but they are drawn to a nice place to stick their nuts. If you dont protect your garlic bed, youre going to start seeing a bunch of holes dug in the mulchbut I have devised the perfect foil. I cut a piece of hardware fabric the size of the bed, and then lay it across the bed and screw it down. The holes are large enough for the garlic sprouts to grow through, and by the time the garlic outgrows the fabric (which you roll off) youll be well into spring, and the garlic has a fighting chance against the squirrels.Garlic has two harvests: scapes and headsPlants sprout with the intention of forming seeds. Plants arent great at multi-tasking, so they tend to be able to only focus on one thing at any time. Forming roots, forming greenery/flowers, or forming seeds. Once they start to produce seeds, the rest of the plant is done. In order to get those really nice big bulbs of garlic, you want to stop the plant from that seed productionand luckily, garlic makes that easy and delicious. In early summer, the plants will send up a hard stalk that will curl like a pig tail once it has some loft to it. At the end, youll be able to see a bud of a flower. That is the scape. You want to make sure to take that scape off before that flower opens up, since that is where the seeds come from. The trick is waiting long enough so the scape is edible. This will happen over a week or so in a bed, so you want to check daily, but make sure to wait until the scape has made that curly-q shape. Then break it off as close to the base as you can. Scapes ready to be harvested. Credit: Amanda Blum The real harvest comes mid summer, when it is time to harvest the bulbs. By now, youll have tall green stalks rising from the soil for each bulb. The outside of the stalk has papery layers, like an onion. The rule is that when the two to three lowest leaves/layers turn brown, its go time.To harvest, do not pull on the necks of the garlicuse a hand spade. Holding the neck, slide the spade down vertically a few inches away until it is as far in the soil as possible, and then push it towards the stalk. This will loosen the garlic so you can pull it out. Be methodical, going along the grid.Processing your scapesScapes are pungent and concentrated in flavor. While some people grill or pickle them, my favorite recipe is to make a kosh with them, a recipe of Jori Jayne Emde that I use. Blitz the scapes in a blender or food processor, then weigh the scapes, and add 20% salt to them. Mix well and then allow to ferment in a jar. She lets it hang out on a shelf for a few weeks before moving it to the fridge, but at that level of salt, I believe it to be shelf-stable, so it remains there all year. After six months, it will become the most spectacular paste, to be used as a rub on any protein or a base for soups or sauces.Curing your garlic Am I too excited about these braids? Yes. Yes I am. Credit: Amanda Blum The heads themselves need some work when they come out of the soil. They need to be cured in order to last a few months. This involves cleaning the garlic and then exposing it to a nice breeze and dry but cool conditions. To clean up the garlic, pull off the lowest leaves altogether, leaving a nice clean bulb.If you intend to braid your garlic, leave the stem on and braid away. If youve ever french braided hair, it's the same method. Start with three heads of garlic making a basic braid. On each subsequent crossover, add a head of garlic and add the stem to the crossing handful. At the end, continue your braid without adding more garlic and then tie the braid off with twine or a knot of the stems. Credit: Amanda Blum You dont have to braid garlicyou can simply store it. In this case, trim it off five inches above the bulb.Regardless of your method, you'll want to put the garlic someplace airy but dryinside or under coverand you want to hang it in a way that air will move around the whole bulb. So lay them out or use chicken wire suspended in the air that you stick garlic heads through. If youve braided the garlic, hang it up.When the whole stalk is brown and outer layers are papery, your garlic is ready. This takes from two weeks to a month. Once cured, you want to store the garlic someplace it gets airflow and cool temperatures.Long-term storageThe best solution for long term storage, if you sense your garlic starting to sprout or turn, is to process it into your own garlic powder. By peeling all the garlic and dehydrating it sufficiently, you can then grind it into a powder that's pretty shelf stable, so long as youve really dried it.

As the summer slips into its last phase, its time to check a few maintenance tasks off your list. From HVAC to landscaping, a little bit of maintenance now can prevent small problems from becoming bigger ones. Here are a few tasks you should do in August to keep everything in good shape heading into fall.Check your downspoutsIn some areas, the end of August is a rainy season; in others, its a storm season with major downpours. To make sure that your roof lasts and to protect your foundation from flooding, check that your downspouts are clear of leaves and debris. To clear a clogged downspout, you can remove it from the drain connector on your gutter and shoot a strong jet of water from your hose through it. If a hose isnt strong enough, you can try an extendable cleaning brush to get the blockage out.Check your HVAC filtersIn some areas, its wildfire season already, and smoke buildup in your furnace filter can be a problem. In other areas, dry weather can kick up dustand theres likely a seasons worth of pollen in there, too. Inspect your filter to see how it's holding up, even if it's not officially time to swap it out yet. Having an extra filter or two on hand if you live in an area that could be affected by wildfire smoke is also a good idea.Tighten and grease hingesAs the seasons change, the moisture content in the air shifts, as well as the temperature, causing woodwork to swell and contract. When this happens, doors can stick or become loose in their frames. Take a few minutes in August to give your doors a once-over, checking that hinges are securely seated by giving screws a quick turn with a screwdriver to help your doors stay functional. In addition to checking the door hardware, you can use a needle oiler to lubricate hinges, locks, and latches that are noisy or sticky. Now is a good time to check the hinges and latches on fence and deck gates as well.Clear out dead brushIf you have dead tree branches, dead twigs on bushes, or other dry plant material, August is a good time to trim it away. Trimming dead branches reduces damage from storms and hurricanes, and removing dry wood and leaves from your yard reduces risk from fire as well. If you prefer to leave some leaves and brush for wildlife habitat, you can make a leaf or brush pile thats at least 15 feet away from structures.Replace old bulbs with LEDsAs the days begin to get shorter, youll likely be turning on the lights more often. If you still have some conventional incandescent bulbs in a few places, now is a great time to swap them out. You can save some money on your electric bill, and check this task off your list for the next few years as good quality LED bulbs last much longer than their incandescent counterparts.Build your seasonal emergency kitsIf you dont already have an emergency kit set up for hurricane season, wildfire season, or extreme heat, August is a good time to build one. A good emergency kit should have:A battery-powered radioA battery-powered light sourceA battery-powered device chargerThree days worth of waterThree days worth of non-perishable foodA first aid kitYou can add other items that are useful for the particular climate and weather in your area as well. If you already have an emergency kit, you can check your supplies and expiration dates on your food and water.