Skyrim can be a pretty solitary journey, but luckily the game allows you to enlist a follower to accompany you on your journey and help with combat. So today on GameRant, were ranking the top followers in Skyrim.

Thanks to the runaway success of Baldur's Gate 3, there's arguably never been a time when both the CRPG genre and the Dungeons & Dragons IP were more popular. Previously confined to a relative niche within the wider umbrella of role-playing games, Baldur's Gate 3 has inspired new players to go back and revisit games in the CRPG genre, both current and classic, discovering that deep character customization, rich role-playing systems, and rewarding turn-based combat are hallmarks of games bearing the CRPG moniker. Now, the Dungeons & Dragons IP would do well to unearth this buried treasure of its past for future video game releases.

One Piece's Elbaf Arc has introduced fans to quite a lot of exciting mysteries, and it goes without saying that Loki is the character that the fans want to know the most about at this point in time. Loki is the Accursed Prince of Elbaf who is hated by many for various reasons. Right from the moment that Loki was introduced in the story, fans knew that he would be quite a complex character. In fact, even before his introduction, quite a lot of fans had pinned him to be a villain and Oda certainly took that route as well, or, at the very least, led fans to believe that Loki might be a villain.

The project is named The Hallway.The Hallway is a weirdcore-ish psychological horror game, inspired by things like Omori. and some of it is inspired by the theories of Sigmund Freud, like The Unconscious Mind, and his structure of the human psyche. In this case, I'm talking about The Ego, The Superego, and the Id.These three are personified into two people. Dooble, who is the Ego in this case, and Vinde, who is the Superego. These two are the same person, though th

We may earn a commission from links on this page.I love my bone conduction headphones. I wear them when Im running so that I can hear traffic approaching. I also love them for noisy environments where I put in earplugs. Since the headphones dont require my ear canal to be open, I can use earplugs and still be able to hear my bone-conducted music. So whats going on with this strange technology, and what are the downsides? Ill explain. SHOKZ OpenRun Bone Conduction Headphones $99.95 at Amazon $129.95 Save $30.00 Get Deal Get Deal $99.95 at Amazon $129.95 Save $30.00 How bone conduction worksNormally, when we hear a sound from something around us, the sound waves travel through air until they hit our eardrum, located inside the ear canal. The eardrum vibrates in time with the musicreally, the frequency of the soundand transmits that vibration to tiny bones located in whats called our middle ear.(From there, vibrations are transmitted to the inner ear, including the cochlea, where they are translated into signals sent to our brain and then further processed into our perception of sound. All of that is outside the scope of this article, though. Were just interested in how the vibrations get from our headphones to the middle ear.)Theres another way to vibrate those middle ear bones, though: you can do it directly, by sending vibrations right through the head. According to legend, Beethoven would bite his conducting wand and hold it against his piano, so that he could hear through his teeth. You can try this right now, with any old earbuds: turn on some music and hold your earbuds speaker against your tooth. Youll hear the music. Wild, huh?We actually hear bone-conducted sounds all the time. Every time you speak, youre hearing your own voice through bone (and soft tissue) conduction and through the air. (Thats probably why your recorded voice sounds so different from what youre used to hearing when you talk.) Stick your fingers in your ears and speak out loud, and youll hear just the bone-conducted portion.Bone conduction headphones take advantage of this phenomenon. Like all headphones, they have tiny little speakers. But instead of pointing those little speakers into our ear canals to vibrate the air and then our eardrums, the headphones are designed to press their little speakers against a boneusually the cheekbone right in front of the ear.Technically they are also conducting the sound through soft tissues like skin, muscle, and fat, but the bones do a really good job and are what the technology is named after.Are Shokz and other bone conduction headphones really conducting sound through bone?Yes, they work through actual bone conduction, but not only bone conduction. Some of the sound gets transmitted through the air as well.Because people dont always believe thisI came across some Reddit threads where people were arguing over whether bone conduction is bullshithere are two little experiments you can do with bone conduction headphones to understand whats going on.First, wear them normally. The little speakers will be on the bony spot right in front of your ear. Turn on some music. Enjoy. Now pull the speakers gently away from your head, so theyre no longer making contact. Yes, you will still hear the music. But, it will be tinny and quiet, compared to when you were wearing them normally.Now, wear them normally again, but plug your ears with your fingers (or, if you like, a handy pair of earplugs.) The sound will be differenta bit deeper, is how I would describe it, but Im no audiophile. It almost seems like it gets louder. The headphones definitely dont need air-based access to your eardrums to get their sound through.Is bone conduction safe for your ears?Bone conduction is neither better or worse for your ears than traditional headphones, because ultimately the same thing happens in each. Your cochlea (which is the part of your ear thats damaged in the most common types of hearing loss) still receives the vibrations either way. Too-loud bone conduction headphones are bad for you, just like too-loud regular headphones.There is one way that bone conduction headphones can be better for your ears, as I hinted above. If youre in a noisy environment, you can wear earplugs to protect your ears from the loud sounds around you, and you can wear bone-conduction headphones to deliver a bit of music to fill the silence.I started wearing the earplugs-and-headphones combo this summer when I was doing a lot of outdoor workouts near a loud air conditioner, and also realized that the sound of dropping the bar was actually pretty darn loud as well (dropping the bar is a routine part of olympic weightlifting). So I got some Loop earplugs, and found that not only could I still hear my music through my Aftershokz Aeropex Mini (an older version of what is now the Shokz OpenRun Mini), I was able to turn the volume to a near-minimum and still hear it just fine. Overall my ears are getting a lot less noise exposure, so thats a win-win. Loop Experience 2 Ear Plugs $34.95 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $34.95 at Amazon What are the downsides of bone conduction headphones?There arent any health or safety downsides (as we discussed above), but you arent going to get pristine sound quality through bone conduction headphones.Some are better than others, and you should always check out reviews and try headphones in person if you want to make a buying decision based on sound quality. But in general, the upside of bone-conduction headphones is also their downside. Since Shokz and the like dont block out ambient sounds, the sound that reaches your ear is a mix of the music youre playing on purpose, and the noises of the world around you.When I wear my Aftershokz with earplugs, I dont get great sound quality that way, either. Just like your voice sounds different with your ears plugged, the sound mix of bone conduction plus earplugs is not quite the same as what youd hear through a good pair of quality headphones.Personally, I find these minor downsides are balanced by the other advantages that bone conduction headphones provide. I dont need to hear my podcasts in crystal-clear audio while Im running, I just need to be able to listen in while still being able to hear whats going on around me. When I do want to listen to music in high fidelity, I do that at home, with a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones.

I dont take towels or bathrobes from hotels, but I do make a point to grab up all of the crappy disposable shower caps. Although they will never see the inside of my bathroom, theyre guaranteed to be put to use in my kitchen. You see, I use them for bread baking. The humble plastic shower cap is surprisingly helpful for proofing dough.Like so many important life skills, I learned this trick from The Great British Bake Off. During a bread baking challenge, one of the contestants unpacks a tiny envelope and comments on how they steal shower caps from hotels for proofing bread. They popped the plastic cap on the bowl with freshly kneaded dough and moved on.The pitfalls of proofingAfter that episode, I was both angry that I hadnt been doing this already, and excited that I had a hotel stay coming up. Although only a single step in the bread making process, a solid rise during proofing can make a huge difference in your finished loaf. Streamlining this step would be huge.Proofing is when you leave raw dough in a warm area for an extended period of time, usually a couple hours, so the yeast can release gas and the dough can rise. Normally, bread recipes will indicate covering the bowl of dough with plastic wrap, or a tea towel. Those have always been OK methods for me, but there are pitfalls. Plastic wrap doesnt adhere to metal, plastic, or wooden bowls very well and can slip off the bowl or into it. Tea towels are okay, but theyre porous and can be drafty. Either scenario might make for longer wait times, or worse, a dried-out skin developing on your dough which can mess up the texture and impede the rise.Hotel shower caps make proofing dough easierThe way hotel shower caps are designed to hang onto your cranium happens to be perfect for looping over the edges of bowls, too. Its essentially a plastic bag with an elastic ring around the opening. The elastic can stretch easily to hook around bowls 12 inches in diameter and smaller, and once it tightens in place it doesnt budge. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The plastic bouffant locks in the warmth and creates a bit of extra head room in case your dough rises surprisingly high. This keeps your dough from getting stuck to the plastic, keeping your shower cap clean so you can reuse it indefinitely (or until it falls apart). Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann If you're baking once or twice this winter, then you might not give a hoot about longer proofing times, but if youre churning out loaves more frequently this winter, or baking for friends and family, snapping on a shower cap makes proofing much less fussy.So the next time you stay at a hotel, make sure to check the bathroom for your next kitchen tool.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.A while back, I saw a so-called hack on social media for making your home smell nice that was, simply put, terrible advice. It involved putting essential oils in your vacuum, which you should never do. I recommended a few other home-scenting tips instead, but all of those focused on neutralizing odors, not introducing new, pleasant ones. Not long after, however, social media delivered me a new suggestion for making any room smell niceand this one wont damage vacuums (or anything else). It involves hiding little extract-scented pads around your home.Use extracts to easily scent your homeFirst of all, the video I saw was this one, from Kelly the Cleaning Girl, a TikTokker who loves to clean and wear pink. I trusted her instantly when she said that dabbing some extract on a furniture pad and hiding it in your house will make the place smell nice, but I still had some concerns and wanted to test it out.My first concern was, What is a furniture pad? I went to Target, where I found Scotch felt pads, which I realized have adhesive backing and are meant to be stuck under chair legs to stop them from scratching hardwood flooring. (I have rugs; I didnt know!) The ones I got arent on Targets site, but theyre comparable to this 32-pack for $4.04.My second concern was, Wont extract attract bugs? I checked with Lifehackers baking guru, Allie Reinmann, and she said that while extracts are used in food, they themselves have too much alcohol to be considered foodstuffs. They have, she said, no sugar or anything for bacteria to grow, so I was sold. She did wonder about how long the smell would last, since the extract would likely evaporate quickly, but I assured her I would find out. I got regular old McCormick pure vanilla extract ($6.99 for two ounces).Then I got to work.How to covertly scent your home with furniture padsI got out a sheet of six pads and set it on the counter. I decided to put a little extract on each pad while they were still affixed to the backing sheet, which turned out to be much cleverer than I realized. The extract came rushing out of the bottle and got all over the sheet, so I had to kind of move it around so it would touch all the pads. Some pads had more extract and others had less. I thought that was a good experiment. I noticed they looked a little shiny, but were pretty quickly absorbing the liquid, so I let them sit for about five minutes so it could all sink in. Then I took one of the lightly dampened pads and stuck it under the countertop.It smelled nice right away, but I wondered how long it would last. I put the sheet containing the five remaining pads in another room, to see if the smell would be more intenseand long-lastingin there.After four hours, I focused and breathed deep. The vanilla smell was definitely evident, but not overpowering. I had to pay attention to sniff it out, as it was more of a subtle addition to the rooms than an overbearing sensory assault.The nice thing about this method is that these pads are already sticky, so you can hide them anywhere, unlike other kinds of air fresheners. The technique is sustainable, too, since you wont need to buy new pads very often. Since testing this out with extract, I've also tried a few using essential oils, just to mix up my scent selection. As I suspected, the scent was stronger and lasted longer, so if you're looking for something more heavy-duty, start there. Other similar scent-boosting ideasI am a fiend for smells; no one likes to go shopping with me because of how long I will stand in the candle section evaluating scents. I invest heavily in perfume for my body and fragrances for my home, so I have a lot of opinions here. I did love the furniture pad idea because of how easily they tuck away out of sight and how economical the whole exercise is (weeks of scent for under $10!) but when I really want to enhance the olfactory appeal of my place, I call in the big guns. As much as I love smelling candles in the store, I've found that for the scents from them to truly permeate a room, you need to invest in the expensive ones. I have my share of Diptyque and Margiela, but I'm also a freak; I can't in good conscience recommend that you spend $75 on this mission (although the ever-popular Diptyque Bais candle is on sale for $66.99 on Amazon right now).My two cheaper go-tos are incense and wall diffusers. No one ever believes me when I say I rely on incense, which is very inexpensive and I can buy from random vendors in the subway station (although you can also find 140 sticks for under $10 online), but I absolutely do. The scent is powerful while the incense is burning, but doesn't overstay its welcome once it's done. If you want to keep the party going, burn another stick. This is great if you don't want to be smelling the same smell all the time, as there are so many (cheap) varieties to switch between, and they have a more powerful effect than a standard candle. But if you do want to smell the same smell all the time, do I have the thing for you: A Wallflowers diffuser. I was used to the cheaper plug-ins you can find at the dollar store, so I was skeptical of these at first, but they work. The smell goes everywhere, it goes there fast, and it stays there for a long time. I will never stop buying refills for mine. The plug-ins cost between about $6 and $20, come in cute patterns (including nightlights), and can be refilled for about $3.50 with all manner of scent varieties. They're not as cheap as Glade by any means, but they work better, which matters.

Squid Game has set a new high for Netflix's television programming. Variety reported that the second season of the Korean show drew in 68 million views over its first four days. That's the biggest debut for a TV show on the streaming platform, besting the 50.1 million set by Wednesday in 2022. The first season of Squid Game also held the crown as the top-watched Netflix series for a while; 142 million households had watched it as of October 2021. The third and final season could deliver a hat trick of record results for the company when it airs next year.While the show offers a skewering critique of capitalism, Netflix has been turning Squid Game into quite the cash cow. The streamer launched a less deadly reality show spinoff, an in-person pop-up experience and a multiplayer mobile game based onthe TV series.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/squid-games-second-season-is-officially-netflixs-biggest-tv-debut-205113266.html?src=rss

When it comes to boosting your systems performance, upgrading to one of the fastest SSDs is a no-brainer. Whether youre building a gaming PC, speeding up an older laptop or simply craving lightning-fast load times, an SSD is the way to go. Unlike traditional hard drives, SSDs rely on NAND flash storage, meaning you get faster data transfer speeds, improved reliability and a more responsive experience overall.Modern SSDs are quite versatile, catering to everyone from gamers chasing the best performance to those hunting for the best budget options that still deliver solid speed. Pair a quality SSD with a powerful GPU, and youre set for seamless gaming and multitasking. Plus, with advanced firmware improving efficiency and durability, SSDs are now better than ever at handling high-intensity workloads. In this buying guide, well explore the best SSDs on the market, whether youre after raw speed, affordability or a combination of the two. Best SSDs in 2025 How we test SSDs Ive either tested or personally use daily every SSD recommended on this list. Out of our top picks, I bought four with my own money after doing about a dozen hours of research. Separately, Engadget Senior Reporter Jeff Dunn has also tested a handful of our recommendations, including the Crucial X9 Pro listed above. What to look for in a PC SSD The most affordable way to add fast storage space to a computer is with a 2.5-inch SATA drive. Its also one of the easiest if you dont want to worry about compatibility since almost every computer made in the last two decades will include a motherboard with Serial ATA connections. For that reason, the best SATA SSDs are an excellent choice if you want to extend the life of an older PC build. Installation is straightforward, too. Once youve secured the internal SSD in a drive cage, all you need to do is to connect it to your motherboard and power supply. The one downside of SATA drives is that, in terms of responsiveness, theyre slower than their high-performance NVMe counterparts, with SATA III limiting data transfers to 600MB/s. But even the slowest SSD will be significantly faster than the best mechanical drives. And with high-capacity, 1TB SATA SSDs costing about $100, theyre a good bulk-storage option. If your PC is newer, theres a good chance it includes space for one or more M.2 SSDs. The form factor represents your ticket to the fastest SSDs on the market, but the tricky part is navigating all the different standards and specs involved. M.2 drives can feature either a SATA or PCIe connection. SSDs with the latter are known as Non-Volatile Memory or NVMe drives and are significantly faster than their SATA counterparts, with Gen3 models offering sequential write speeds of up to 3,000MB/s. These drives rely on NVMe NAND technology for their superior performance and durability. You can get twice the performance with a Gen4 SSD, but youll need a motherboard and processor that supports the standard. If youre running an AMD system, that means at least a Ryzen 3000 or 5000 CPU and an X570 or B550 motherboard. With Intel, meanwhile, youll need at least an 11th or 12th Gen processor and a Z490, Z590 or Z690 motherboard. Keep in mind that Gen4 SSDs typically cost more than their Gen3 counterparts as well. More expensive still are the latest Gen5 models, which offer sequential read speeds of up to 16,000MB/s. However, even if your computer supports the standard, youre better off buying a more affordable Gen4 or Gen3 drive. At the moment, very few games and applications can take advantage of Gen3 NVMe speeds, let alone Gen4 and Gen5 speeds. Whats more, Gen5 NVMe drives can run hot, which can lead to performance and longevity issues. Your money is better spent on other components, like upgrading your GPU, for now. As for why you would buy an M.2 SATA drive over a similarly specced 2.5-inch drive, it comes down to ease of installation. You add M.2 storage to your computer by installing the SSD directly onto the motherboard. That may sound intimidating, but in practice the process involves a single screw that you first remove to connect the drive to your computer and then retighten to secure the SSD in place. As an added bonus, there arent any wires involved, making cable management easier. Note that you can install a SATA M.2 SSD into an M.2 slot with a PCIe connection, but you cant insert an NVMe M.2 SSD into a M.2 slot with a SATA connection. Unless you want to continue using an old M.2 drive, theres little reason to take advantage of that feature. Speaking of backward compatibility, its also possible to use a Gen4 drive through a PCIe 3 connection, but you wont get any of the speed benefits of the faster NVMe. One last thing to consider is that M.2 drives come in different physical sizes. From shortest to longest, the common options are 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110. (The first two numbers represent width in millimeters and the latter denote the length.) For the most part, you dont have to worry about that since 2280 is the default for many motherboards and manufacturers. Some boards can accommodate more than one size of NVMe SSD thanks to multiple standoffs. That said, check your computers documentation before buying a drive to ensure youre picking up a compatible size. If youre buying a replacement SSD for the Steam Deck or Steam Deck OLED, things are less complicated. For Valves handheld, you will need a 2230 size NVMe. Simple. If you dont want to open your Steam Deck, its also possible to expand its storage by installing a microSD card. Engadget has a separate guide dedicated to SD card storage, so check that out for additional buying advice. I alluded to this earlier, but the best buying advice I can offer is dont get too caught up about being on the bleeding edge of storage tech. The sequential read and write speeds you see manufacturers list on their drives are theoretical and real-world performance benchmark tests vary less than you think. If your budget forces you to choose between a 1TB Gen3 NVMe and a 512GB Gen4 model, go for the higher-capacity one. From a practical standpoint, the worst thing you can do is buy a type of SSD thats too small for needs. Drives can slow dramatically as they approach capacity, and you will probably end up purchasing one with a larger storage capacity in the future. What to look for in portable and USB flash drives Portable SSDs are a somewhat different beast to their internal siblings. While read and write speeds are important, they are almost secondary to how an external drive connects to your PC. You wont get the most out of a model like the SanDisk Extreme Pro V2 without a USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 connection. Even among newer PCs, thats something of a premium feature. For that reason, most people are best off buying a portable drive with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Thunderbolt connection. The former offers transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. The best external hard drives also allow you to transfer data from your Windows PC to a Mac, or other device, if compatible. Be sure to consider this beforehand if you plan to use your portable drive across multiple devices. Additionally, if you plan to take your drive on trips and commutes, its worthwhile to buy a model with IP-certified water and dust proofing. Some companies like Samsung offer rugged versions of their most popular drives with a high endurance rating. For additional peace of mind, 256-bit AES hardware encryption will help prevent someone from accessing your data if you ever lose or misplace your external SSD. Some of the same features contribute to a great thumbstick drive. Our favorite picks for best budget external SSD models feature USB 3.0 connections and some form of hardware encryption. A note on console storage Seagate If PC gaming isnt your thing and you own an Xbox Series X|S or PS5, outfitting your fancy new console with the fastest possible storage is far more straightforward than doing the same on PC. With a Series X or Series S, your options are limited to options from Seagate and Western Digital. The former offers 512GB, 1TB and 2TB models, with the most affordable starting at a not-so-trivial $90. Western Digitals Expansion Cards are less expensive, with pricing starting at $80 for the 512GB model. The good news is that both options are frequently on sale. Your best bet is to set an alert for the model you want by using a price tracker like CamelCamelCamel. With Sonys PlayStation 5, upgrading the consoles internal storage is slightly more involved. Instead of employing a proprietary solution, the PS5 uses NVMe storage. Thankfully, there arent as many potential configurations as you would find on a PC. Engadget maintains a comprehensive guide to the best SSDs for PS5; in short, your best bet is a high-capacity Gen4 drive with a built-in heatsink. Check out that guide for a full list of gaming SSD recommendations, but for a quick go-to, consider the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX I recommend above. It meets all the memory specifications for Sonys latest console and you wont run into any clearance issues with the heatsink. Corsair offers 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB versions of the drive. Expect to pay about $110 for the 1TB variant and about $200 for 2TB. For those still playing on a previous generation console, you can get slightly faster game load times from a PlayStation 4 by swapping the included hard drive to a 2.5-inch SSD, but going out of your way to do so probably isnt worth it at this point and youre better off saving your money for one of the new consoles. SSD FAQs What size SSD is best? There is no one size fits all rule for SSDs, but we generally recommend getting at least a 1TB SSD if youre looking to upgrade PC or game console storage, or looking to add an external drive to your toolkit. A 1TB drive will be plenty for most people who need extra storage space for photos, documents and programs. If youre a hardcore gamer, you may want to invest in even more storage considering many high-profile titles today can take up a ton of space. Is a 256GB SSD better than a 1TB hard drive? The short answer is that it depends on what you need your drive for. In general, SSDs are faster and more efficient than HDDs, but HDDs are usually cheaper. We recommend springing for an SSD for most use cases today upgrading a PC, saving important photos and documents, storing games long term, etc. But if youre focused on getting the most amount of extra space possible (and sticking to a budget), an HDD could be a good option for you. Does bigger SSD mean faster? Getting a bigger SSD doesnt always translate into a faster drive overall. A bigger SSD will provide a higher storage capacity, which means more space for storing digital files and programs. To understand how fast an SSD will be, youll want to look at its read/write speeds: read speeds measure how fast a drive can access information, while write speeds measure how fast the drive can save information. Most SSDs list their approximate read/write speeds in their specs, so be sure to check out those numbers before you make a purchase.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-ssds-140014262.html?src=rss

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