Gather round and let me tell you a story about the dark sky that makes mid-afternoon feel like midnight, and the light source that makes it at all bearable. Once a year, winter appears with a quick chill of the ears and sudden craving for a vat of hot chocolate. It brings all things beautiful: holiday lights, white blankets of snow in the park and thoughtful gifts. But it also invites in the cold and heaping amounts of darkness. I came of age in upstate New York, where sunlight is gone by half past four in the afternoon the entirety of December and January. Thats to say this isnt a new phenomenon for me, but that hasnt made it any less painful. In fact, it has caused a feeling of dread that starts popping up come late September. But when I moved to Scotland, 4:30PM became nearly 3PM and the sun didnt fully rise until well after Id woken up. Even in London where Im now based, its easily dark by 4PM on the shortest days. Like most people, the darkness leaves me exhausted while taking a serious toll on my mental health. Now to the hero of this story: my SAD lamp. SAD stands for seasonal affective disorder, a depressive disorder triggered by the change of seasons (usually the darker days, though some people experience it in the summer). You by no means need to receive a SAD diagnosis to use a SAD lamp, bright light therapy lamp or wake-up lamp all names for the same thing. I bought Lumies Vitamin L bright light therapy lamp a few years ago ahead of my first Scottish winter and have used it every year since. The Vitamin L lamp is a slim rectangle that provides 5,000 lux at a foot away or 2,500 lux at about an arms length. The latter is the recommended distance for use and more or less how far it sits from me. Its just shy of eight inches wide with a length of 11 inches and a depth of just over three inches. It can stand in portrait or landscape orientation, too, though I find it doesnt balance very well in the latter. The light makes up the entire front panel and has a simple power button on the back. The lamp lives on the floor next to my kitchen table, where Ill prop it up nearly every morning while having breakfast or starting work. As a big fan of sleeping in, I rarely use it on the weekends unless Im getting up early to run somewhere and I typically forget or get busy in the morning at least one workday. But when I do have it on, Ill keep it shining at me from an angle for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how much time I have. Sarah Fielding / Engadget This light is far from an extra table lamp to add a little glow. Its a very I repeat for good measure very bright light. And yet, despite it practically being imitation sunlight, theres no UV rays to worry about. It really does wake me up just from how bright it is and the daily routine adds a nice structure to busy, cold mornings. Ive never received a SAD diagnosis but I do have a panic disorder that causes anxiety and bouts of depression, the latter of which is more prominent during these cold, dark days. I dont know how much of it is the lamp and how much is a placebo, but it really does help keep my negative feelings at bay and makes the dark days a bit more bearable. Overall, if you dread the darkness of the winter months as much as I do, I highly recommend trying this Lumie lamp or exploring one of the other options on the market. Just the habit of turning it on most days makes me feel like Im doing something to combat the dreariness. Plus, it really is hard to be tired when theres a bright light shining near you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/this-sad-lamp-makes-the-winter-almost-bearable-130037310.html?src=rss

Its that quiet, end-of-December period for tech news. Still, alongside our usual retrospectives on tech in 2024, the Russian government is cracking down crypto, and final seasons of hit Netflix phenomena are on their way.First, according to reports by the state-owned news agency Tass, the Russian government banned crypto mining in ten regions for six years. Russia has cited the industrys high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use. The Russian ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The currency has only been fully legal in Russia since November. Mat SmithGet this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest tech stories you missedHow to spend your $100 gift card after ChristmasEngadget's Balatro of the year 2024'Doctor Who: Joy to the World' reviewSquid Game will have a third (and final) season in 2025Netflix released the second season yesterday.No, I dont know what cliffhanger shenanigans wrapped up season 2 (it just came out!), but you wont have to wait too long to see how it all concludes. The Netflix-owned blog Tudum announced that the South Korean drama will return for its third and final season next year.Continue reading.Engadget's Games of the Year 2024From Animal Well to Vendetta Forever.EngadgetAfter a bumper year in 2023, the last 12 months still offered plenty of amazing new releases. Whether you love a good indie or a big-budget production, there was something for you. And dont worry: we shifted our Balatro essays into their own dedicated story.Continue reading.LG found a new job for your standing lampThe "indoor gardening appliance" is a mood lighting and grow light all in one.LGThe latest high-tech lamp from LG pulls double-duty as a plant pot. LG says the lamp with a circular lampshade shines LEDs in five different intensities on whichever plants you want to grow. Then, at night, the lights fire upwards to create cozy mood lighting. The taller, standing lamp can hold up to 20 plants at a time and you don't need to worry about watering. There's a 1.5-gallon tank built into the base of the lamp.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121507411.html?src=rss

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There are certain social media rules we can all agree on: Ghosting a conversation is impolite, and replying k to a text is the equivalent of a backhand slap (violent, wrong, and rude). But what about the rest of the rules? When can we really remind someone of our old Venmo request? What happens when someone tries to flirt with you on LinkedIn?Fortunately, terminally online writers Delia Cai and Steffi Cao are here to answer all your digital quandaries, big or small. Welcome to Fast Companys advice column, Posting Playbook. This week, Delia Cai and Steffi Cao offer their advice on how to achieve a better relationship with social media in the new year.My New Years resolution is to have a better relationship with the internet and get offline more. Any recommendations on how to start?Delia: I personally havent been brave enough to do this yet, but I think a huge part of going offline is . . . taking all the offending apps off your phone. Bring back that childhood joy of rushing to your desktop when you want to luxuriate in onlineness, and keep that phone as pristine as possible of distractions. Bonus points for challenging yourself to spend an afternoon or evening with your phone turned off. I am pretty sure my brain operates at a cosmic capacity when that infernal glass brick is sitting uselessly in my pocket.My other advice is to sign up for some kind of IRL activity that keeps you off your phone. Think of it as retraining your brain to go for hours without needing that dopamine injection every few minutes. Ive tried pottery (though you kind of still get text neck if youre throwing on the wheel), weight-training, yoga, movie-going, and language classes, all of which have required actual focus, which felt so foreign and excruciating at first. But once you start building a muscle for being off your phone for hours at a time, youll find youre less dependent on the ol rat lever.Steffi: The allure of getting suckered into a rabbit hole is hard for anyone to resist. The internet is set up this waythey feed you content that youve interacted with or shown interest in to tempt you to keep scrolling, no matter what the TikTok psst, its been a minute, go to sleep videos say. Especially when I started reporting on internet culture, it was really hard to differentiate rotting online and research for work. Yes, do the things of picking up non-digital hobbies and distracting yourself with projects that require your hands, brain and time away from your screens (reading, writing, knitting, cooking, playing an instrument, carpentry, painting, volunteering, sports teams), but Im also here to provide recommendations for when you eventually pick up your phone. Telling yourself to touch grass can only really do so much. Everyones going to scroll; the tech companies have decreed as much. But there are a lot of parameters you can set up for yourself to make sure you stop at a certain point.Im a proponent of second and burner accounts, which help organize your content so its not so overwhelming on one page. If you want to see a bunch of your favorite influencers without also seeing your classmates from elementary school getting married on your Instagram feed, start a finsta, so you can differentiate between the acts of social and media. I have one TikTok which features more trending stuff, and a second for more lifestyle-based content that I more or less use like Pinterest. Ive used alt Twitter accounts for fandom content or news, so you know to go to specific accounts for unique purposes. Ive found that this helps decrease the possibility of getting distracted by other things. I also get too lazy to switch between all the accounts, so I just tend to just check the account I want to see and then go. Its also a great crutch if youre not the best at back-curating your algorithms, or too busy to actively change your content.Its important to remember that you are in control of your algorithms, your time, your overall media diet. Binging on brain rot is the worst sugar crash, and it gets old after a while. We should all aim to become active readers and critical consumers. Its the only thing that will save us from descending into the abyss of algorithmic madness. Happy New Year!

Never in history has grocery shopping been easier for people prone to forgetting their wallets at home. Whenever you approach the cashier and realize this common mistake, third-party apps like Google Pay and Apple Pay are there to save the day.A recent study, however, suggests the frictionless ease of paying with apps makes it harder to understand just how much disposable income you actually haveand to put the amount of it youre spending in proper perspective. Shopping may have been more challenging back in the days when cash was king, but perhaps theres such a thing as having it be too easy.According to a paper published in Qualitative Market Research, paying for goods or services with cold hard cash has a psychological effect missing from card and app-based transactions. The act of parting with physical money apparently grounds the moment in concrete terms, making the monetary absence more palpable. After money youve held in your hands slips through your fingers, the cost registers beyond an abstraction. Its impossible to both have our cash and spend it too, so the transaction registers more as a lossand a stinging one at that.Jashim Khan, associate professor of marketing and director of international business management at the University of Surrey, led the researchers who reached this conclusion. The team conducted its study in two parts, carried out on different continents a decade apart. The first part took place in New Zealand in 2013, and the second was centered in China in 2023. Both involved a combination of focus groups and open-ended questionnaires, during which the subjects described how they pay for various items and how they tend to feel afterward. Emotional responses cited after cash transactions include sadness and guilt, which are more likely to be missing from the autopilot-mode of using a digital wallet.In recent years, more businesses have opted to go cashless due to pandemic-era fears of contagions, while others have done so to discourage robberies. U.S. consumers, for their part, now use digital wallets for 42% of physical transactions, a percentage that is expected to creep up significantly over the next few years. Meanwhile, retailers have removed payment obstacles online, too: Sites like Amazon and Shopify make it possible to shop on multiple sites without even having to grab your credit card number.Well before digital wallets became a common form of payment, it was clear consumers tend to spend more when theyre not paying with cash. But the last 25 years have seen the rise of many sleek new ways to spend money without using cash, including apps like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Venmo. Gen Z, who came of age as these forms of payment were catching on, has adopted them to the point where reportedly 85% of Gen Z used their phone for a payment in 2023.One striking observation from our research is that Generation Z tends to form a psychological ownership with the apps where they store their money, Khan tells Fast Company. In contrast, millennials feel a deeper emotional connection to cash. For them, parting with cash feels akin to parting with a part of themselves.As digital wallets become more common and cashless businesses rise alongside them, consumers may feel less sadness and guilt after their purchases, according to the studys findings. While experiencing fewer negative emotions may read on paper like a desirable outcome, it could lead to an epidemic of mindless spending and economic precarity. It is possible to institute some guardrails on personal finances, though, despite our digital wallets.According to Khan, one way to maintain the enjoyment of our purchases while also spending sustainably is to monitor checking and savings accounts every week, or even every day. Regularly reviewing these accounts helps us stay mentally tethered to the amount we have and how much we spend. Another effective strategy he recommends is keeping a spending diary.Whatever one does, though, its important to keep in mind that spending money probably should indeed feel like a loss, especially when its money one cant afford to part with. Sometimes, feeling bad is part of a greater goodstaying out of debt.

As we head into 2025, we will see more companies reevaluate their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Boeing Co, Ford Motor, Harley Davidson, Lowes Cos, Walmart, and more, have shared that they are eliminating or pivoting their DEI efforts. Trumps promise to crack down on DEI initiatives as he enters his second term is also creating a culture of fear, especially for those companies who are also government contractors. There will be more companies canceling their DEI efforts in the months to come, and others who choose to rebrand or rename the work.Here are some ways we will see companies approach DEI in 2025.Pivoting to Belonging and CultureSome companies will rebrand DEI work to be centered around belonging and culture. While some leaders may feel uneasy about continuing to use the words diversity, equity, and inclusion, belonging can spark more feelings of comfort. When we feel like we belong in our workplaces, we are happier and more engaged. We feel like we are accepted by our colleagues and our leaders. We are more likely to be productive on our teams and positively contribute to our workplace culture.As companies pivot to belonging and culture roles, these teams may be positioned as part of the human resources team or communications team. Belonging and culture roles may also look after onboarding experience for new hires, ensuring they are welcomed to the company on day one, and continue to get acclimated to the company 60 days in. These roles may also now be in charge of employee engagement, including implementing an annual employee survey, leading events, and overseeing internal communications. They may oversee and partner with employee resource groups if they still are being nurtured in the organization.Overreliance on employee resource groups to pitch inUnfortunately, we may see the burden be placed back on employee resource groups to help build workplaces where all employees thrive. ERGs may once again become the default, go-to DEI strategy.While some companies were once paying leaders of these groups for their time and commitment, with DEI efforts being slashed or cancelled, those budgets may also be gone. Some leaders may no longer be paid for this work, and in many companies, ERG leaders were never being paid in the first place.When it comes to employee engagement and programming, many ERGs will continue to self mobilize and host programming. Heritage months like Black History Month, Womens History Month, and June Pride Month may be the only time in the year that companies shine a spotlight on these communities. With budgets gone in some companies, ERG leaders may have to lobby or partner with key executives to find the funding.In some cases, companies will rebrand employee resource groups to be business resource groups. BRGs, similar to ERGs, will be leading programming and also have a goal that ties back to a key company objective. For example, the Womens employee resource group may be asked to help with a product that is being launched, targeted specifically to women. Regardless of how they evolve, these groups will continue to be an important way for employees to connect and find community in the workplace.Integrating DEI across the businessWhile some companies will cancel their commitment and eliminate Chief Diversity Officer roles and DEI teams in 2025, others will say they are integrating DEI across the business. Yet they will provide no explanation, no details, and no metrics of how the company actually plans to do this.Will recruiters still partner with hiring managers on targeting diverse slates and creating fair and equitable interviewing processes? Will supply chain leaders still lead a supplier diversity program, and partner with small business owners? Will marketers still be focused on how their products and services are filling the needs of different communities? Will leaders still be focused on the barriers women face when it comes to advancing into leadership roles in the workplace? Who will be accountable to ensure all this and more continues to happen?Integrating DEI across the business is the ultimate goal. However, a majority of companies are unprepared to do this without the support of a DEI team. Integrating DEI across the business may become another red flag and catchphrase to signal that companies arent interested in continuing their DEI efforts but are just too scared to say it out loud.Focusing on inclusive leadership behaviorsIn my book, Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Debunk Your Workplace, I remind leaders that inclusive leadership is the foundation upon which great company cultures are built. Because when people feel like they belong and are included, they are able to be the best versions of themselves at work and are able to contribute all of their ideas openly and freely. As leaders managing teams, we have the power and the responsibility to create workplaces where we can ensure team members can reach their potential, so the company can reach its potential.I created a simple inclusive leadership framework focused on three pillars: Access, Amplify, and Advocate. When it comes to access, I encourage leaders to ensure they give team members a seat at the table, and that their voice matters. I focus on ways to run meetings more effectively. When it comes to amplify, I encourage leaders to ensure their team members get credit and recognition for their work. In advocate, I encourage leaders to fight their own biases when it comes to introverted versus extroverted leaders, making sure the loudest voice is not the one who always has the most impact.As DEI continues to evolve, many companies will go back to ensuring their leaders are in fact equipped to lead. It is often leaders who arent prepared or dont know how to create an environment where their teams can thrive, because they havent been taught these critical skills. While many will continue to debate the words diversity, equity, and inclusion, and emotions may run high, this will continue to remain true: Creating environments where employees have the opportunity to do their best and make an impact is good for individuals, and also good for business.