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David Hogg needs to come to understand that just because some people he went to school with were shot, he’s not really an expert on anything relating to guns, gun control, the Second Amendment, or anything else. Tragic as Parkland was, it didn’t mystically convey wisdom to either him or any of his cohorts.

At least former fellow-traveler Cameron Kasky has figured that out.

Hogg, however, hasn’t.

In a video, he commented that he believes gun control should have been addressed centuries ago.

Townhall‘s Katie Pavlich gave the perfect response to that.

It was: July 4, 1776 🇺🇸 https://t.co/9kTsoajAUM

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) October 23, 2018

Honestly, what more needs to be said?

Pavlich mimics a Paveway smart bomb by lowering the boom on Hogg’s pretentions of moral superiority on the issue of guns. More importantly, her point is 100 percent correct.

The Founding Fathers didn’t want gun control. They wanted unfettered access to military-grade arms, if not better. Remember that the British were shooting smoothbore muskets during the Revolution while many colonists were armed with rifled weapons. They were all muzzleloaders, but the colonists’ weapons had superior range. Civilian weapons were generally better than the military’s arms.

Our founders liked that. They knew that a government with the ability to restrict arms would soon use that ability to restrict other civil rights.

Pavlich clearly understands this.

Hogg, however, believes he is somehow more enlightened than the brilliant men who created our system of government. Based on what I’ve seen of the twit, that’s not hard to believe. I’ve seen a lot of arrogance come from the other side before, but it pales in comparison to Hogg’s.

In case the young Mr. Hogg sees this, let me lay a few things out very clearly.

The Founding Fathers wanted an armed populace. They didn’t want guns to be the exclusive domain of the government. More importantly, though, they wanted military-grade or better weapons in our hands because the purpose of the Second Amendment is, in part, to keep the government in check. While I’m sure they’d have found shootings like Parkland tragic, they’d have also pointed out that all of those shootings were carried out by damaged individuals and there was no reason to undo the Constitution because of what are really just isolated, though horrific, events.

When the Revolution was over and decided something better than the Articles of Confederation were needed, the Constitution was crafted and then, almost immediately, the Bill of Rights was created and ratified. It encoded precisely what our Founding Fathers intended when it came to guns. Their own writings make their intentions clear. They wanted us to be heavily armed and ready to shoot on a moment’s notice.

So yeah, they did take care of this stuff centuries ago. The fact that you don’t care for their solution doesn’t change that reality. Be a tinpot twit if you want–because you’ll never amass the power to become a tinpot dictator despite any lofty pretensions you may have–but the truth is what it is. No amount of rhetoric or hysterics will ever change that.

Thank God.

Spatulas are workhorses in the kitchen. They need to be able to lift and support heavy items while maneuvering around delicate foods in tight spaces. Tracey Seaman, test kitchen director for Every Day with Rachael Ray Magazine, said cooks should think about “what kind of pan you’re using and what you’re going to use as your tool.” While the thin, sharp edges of a fish spatula are perfect on cast iron or stainless steel, they can do damage to the coating on a nonstick pan. However, some of the plastic spatulas that work well on nonstick aren’t thin enough to slip easily under cookies. And neither of these can scrape down the walls of a saucepan with thickening pastry cream.

All of our experts agreed on one thing—if you have one spatula, make it a fish spatula. “I’d say that the majority of our guys use fish spatulas, slotted so it looks like a rake. I think everyone has that in their bag. It’s probably the most used savory spatula,” said chef Brian Huston of Boltwood. And it’s not just for fish, though “We do tend to use it for burgers and protein on the grill if we’re searing,” he admitted. Chef Howie Velie, Associate Dean of Culinary Specializations at the Culinary Institute of America, confirmed the multiuse importance of fish spatulas in pro kitchens. He told us, “The spatula doesn’t know that it’s made for fish. For me and for a lot of other chefs, it’s kind of an all-purpose, light spatula. I use it for everything.”

Aside from metal fish spatulas, we also looked at plastic spatulas for use on nonstick cookware. When cooking with nonstick pans, it’s important to only use plastic, wood, or silicone utensils to avoid scratching the coating on the pan. Like metal spatulas, the best plastic spatulas have a thin edge that can slip under foods. They also maintain flexibility for maneuvering and strength for lifting. Where many plastic spatulas fail is in thickness, as many are just too thick to slide under delicate foods without breaking them. We looked for plastic spatulas that had tapered edges and thin blades.

We also searched for plastic spatulas that were heat resistant. You could argue that plastic spatulas shouldn’t have to resist high heat since they’re generally being used on nonstick pans, which also deteriorate over high heat. But heat resistance is always a nice feature that won’t limit you to low-temperature cooking.

We also tested silicone spatulas, sometimes called “rubber spatulas,” which are best for scraping down bowls and insuring that custards don’t stick to the bottom of a pan. Silicone has become the material of choice because it’s food-safe and can withstand a much higher heat than its rubber predecessor, which means they are great for cooking eggs as well as preparing pastry-cream and ice-cream bases.

A great silicone spatula can scrape down both the straight sides of a saute pan and get into the rounded bottom of a bowl. It should be stiff and thick enough to press dough together, but flexible enough to wipe down a bowl with ease. It should also be wide and thin enough for folding ingredients together. The experts we spoke to suggested all-silicone, one-piece spatulas were easier to keep clean than those with crevices.

While the light, elegant fish spatula really does a great job in almost every situation, when you’re working with metal pans or on a grill, sometimes a heftier metal turner is the best tool for the job. A metal turner surpasses the fish spatula in its ability to cut sharp, even lines through bar cookies and easily lift heavy pieces of food.

Because metal turners are complementary to the fish spatula, we chose ones that offered different desirable attributes— an offset for comfortable lifting and leverage, a comfortable stiffness for strength, a flat, non-slotted blade for evenly smashing down burgers or pressing grilled cheese sandwiches flat. We also found that a shorter handle allows for great control in flipping, lifting, and carrying.

We also looked at wooden “spatulas,” or turners, which have an angled flat edge for removing fond from the bottom of a pan. Wooden spatulas are also the best tool to use with a Dutch oven since they won’t scratch the enamel the way metal can. Some have rounded corners for use on sloped-sided pans. On his website, Michael Ruhlman denounced the traditional round wooden spoon for its inability in covering a wide surface area on the bottom of a pan. Ruhlman says, “if you had a flat-edge wooden spoon, you scrape everything off the pan, you stir it, you get into the corners.” Since bamboo utensils have a tendency to splinter slightly with prolonged use, we looked for other wooden spatulas made from beechwood and olive wood.

Finally, another multitasking spatula worth adding to your arsenal is an offset spatula. These thin, narrow offset palette knives are designed for bakers who want to add polish to cakes and spread thick batters into the corners of pans, but people often use them for handling delicate tasks of all kinds. The Kitchn’s Emma Christensen calls it a favorite kitchen tool: “Whenever we need to handle hot foods gently, this spatula become an extension of our hands and fingers.”

Fine Cooking’s Abigail Johnson Dodge says of her small, narrow offset spatula, “Because the blade is offset from the handle, I can spread the sides evenly and swirl the top beautifully without my hand getting in the way. It’s also great for spreading mustard or mayo on sandwiches, too.”

In 2016, we also looked at offset spatulas. These include mini spatulas with blades about 4½ inches long, which are great for detailed work like icing cookies or cupcakes; and longer offset spatulas with blades around 9 inches long, which cover more surface area and are essential for quickly and evenly frosting a cake.

The System Preferences app in macOS offers quite a few settings to customize your Mac. When those are not enough, you’d normally have to rustle up a few Terminal commands to make visual as well as functional changes.

But what if you aren’t keen on fiddling with the Terminal app? You can still make the required changes with the following point-and-click tools. These tools make many built-in macOS features easily accessible without text commands.

1. TinkerTool

TinkerTool enables a few macOS features by default. For example, it adds a Quit Finder option to the Finder menu and programs the Backspace key to go back one page in Safari.

You’ll find the settings organized in logical panes such as Dock, Safari, Desktop, iTunes, etc. It’s best to tackle these panes one at a time to keep track of the tweaks that you’re making.

Any changes you make with the app stay restricted to your user account. Unlike the other apps on this list, TinkerTool doesn’t ask you for admin credentials to modify settings.

Here’s a short list of some of the useful changes you can make with TinkerTool:

• Insert separators in the Dock
• Change the default save location of Mac screenshots and their format too
• Enable single application mode, which hides all background apps when you switch to a new app
• Change the number of entries that show up in Recent Items menus

Worried about messing up crucial macOS settings with TinkerTool and having no way of going back? Rest assured that you can revert all the changes you make with the app and restore settings to their original state. All it takes is a click of the Reset to pre-TinkerTool state button on the Reset pane of the app.

Here, you’ll also find a Reset to defaults button in case you want to start using TinkerTool with a clean slate.

Download: TinkerTool (Free)

2. Onyx

Onyx is part maintenance app and part tinkering tool. It can help you detect and fix common macOS problems and improve macOS with visual and functional changes. Let’s focus on the tinkering part for now.

Accordingly, the Parameters pane of Onyx is all that concerns us. Here, you’ll find quite a few settings listed under various categories like Finder, Dock, Login, and Safari.

Using these settings, you can, for example:

• Hide or display various Finder menu items
• Enable half-star ratings in iTunes
• Add a System Preferences pane for the built-in Archive Utility
• Configure screen capture functions

The developers of Onyx have a couple of other apps to handle the maintenance and personalization features of Onyx. They’re called Maintenance and Deeper respectively.

Maintenance gives you tools for tasks like cleaning system caches and running scripts. Deeper lets you customize hidden macOS functions, much like the Parameters pane of Onyx does.

However, Maintenance and Deeper haven’t been updated to work on macOS Mojave yet. The developers strictly advise against using non-compatible versions of these apps. So be sure to keep an eye out for their Mojave-compatible versions.

Download: Onyx (Free)

3. MacPilot

If you want granular control over your Mac’s features, MacPilot can hand it over to you. You can do a lot with this app!

For starters, you can:

• Add spacers to the Dock
• Configure Dock auto-hide delay
• Disable Notification Center and Mission Control
• Disable all animations
• Add a Quit Finder option to the Finder menu
• Change the format and location of macOS screenshots
• Erase files securely
• Force a specific display resolution

That’s a fraction of what you can do with MacPilot. No wonder the app comes across as a bit overwhelming—it lists so many settings.

It’s useful that MacPilot is well organized. You’ll find the major categories divided into panes; each pane further has nested categories that appear as a sidebar menu.

We recommend that you take your time going through each settings pane instead of making changes at random. It’ll help you avoid unnecessary confusion. Also, when in doubt about a setting, leave it alone until you research it well and know what you’re doing.

Even without its system maintenance features, MacPilot is worth paying for. Since it comes with a “try before you buy” policy, why not give it a shot?

Download: MacPilot ($30, free trial available)

4. Cocktail

Like Onyx and MacPilot above, Cocktail has maintenance and personalization tools bundled into one app. Its Interface pane holds the settings you need to tweak elements in Finder, Dock, the login screen, and more.

Cocktail lets you disable window zooming, display the full folder path in the window title, and lock Dock icons and their sizes. Plus, you can configure Finder menu items, disable various animations, and enable half-star ratings in iTunes.

The app also allows you to prevent the Photos app from opening automatically when you connect a device. By the way, you can also do this using your Mac’s Image Capture app.

Pick Cocktail only if you’re planning to use its system maintenance features also. Otherwise, it’ll prove to be a costly purchase.

Download: Cocktail ($30, demo mode available)

Don’t Want to Use the Terminal? Ignore It

The apps above allow you to make many useful changes without disabling SIP (System Integrity Protection). Of course, with SIP enabled, you lose the ability to make certain advanced tweaks. You can still go ahead with them by disabling SIP (but we don’t recommend it)


What Is SIP? macOS System Integrity Protection Explained




What Is SIP? macOS System Integrity Protection Explained
What is System Integrity Protection on your Mac? We explain what SIP does and how it affects macOS software.
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.

userid@somehost:~ % testssl.sh

 

testssl.sh <options>

 

     –h, —help                    what you‘re looking at

     -b, –banner                  displays banner + version of testssl.sh

     -v, –version                 same as previous

     -V, –local                   pretty print all local ciphers

     -V, –local <pattern>         which local ciphers with <pattern> are available?

                                   (if pattern not a number: word match)

 

testssl.sh <options> URI    (“testssl.sh URI” does everything except -E)

 

     -e, –each-cipher             checks each local cipher remotely

     -E, –cipher-per-proto        checks those per protocol

     -f, –ciphers                 checks common cipher suites

     -p, –protocols               checks TLS/SSL protocols (including SPDY/HTTP2)

     -y, –spdy, –npn             checks for SPDY/NPN

     -Y, –http2, –alpn           checks for HTTP2/ALPN

     -S, –server-defaults         displays the server’s default picks and certificate info

     –P, —server–preference       displays the server‘s picks: protocol+cipher

     -x, –single-cipher <pattern> tests matched <pattern> of ciphers

                                   (if <pattern> not a number: word match)

     -c, –client-simulation       test client simulations, see which client negotiates with cipher and protocol

     -H, –header, –headers       tests HSTS, HPKP, server/app banner, security headers, cookie, reverse proxy, IPv4 address

 

     -U, –vulnerable              tests all vulnerabilities

     -B, –heartbleed              tests for heartbleed vulnerability

     -I, –ccs, –ccs-injection    tests for CCS injection vulnerability

     -R, –renegotiation           tests for renegotiation vulnerabilities

     -C, –compression, –crime    tests for CRIME vulnerability

     -T, –breach                  tests for BREACH vulnerability

     -O, –poodle                  tests for POODLE (SSL) vulnerability

     -Z, –tls-fallback            checks TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV mitigation

     -F, –freak                   tests for FREAK vulnerability

     -A, –beast                   tests for BEAST vulnerability

     -J, –logjam                  tests for LOGJAM vulnerability

     -D, –drown                   tests for DROWN vulnerability

     -s, –pfs, –fs, –nsa        checks (perfect) forward secrecy settings

     -4, –rc4, –appelbaum        which RC4 ciphers are being offered?

 

special invocations:

     -t, –starttls <protocol>     does a default run against a STARTTLS enabled <protocol>

     –xmpphost <to_domain>        for STARTTLS enabled XMPP it supplies the XML stream to-‘‘ domain — sometimes needed

     –mx <domain/host>            tests MX records from high to low priority (STARTTLS, port 25)

     –ip <ip>                     a) tests the supplied <ip> v4 or v6 address instead of resolving host(s) in URI

                                   b) arg “one” means: just test the first DNS returns (useful for multiple IPs)

     –file <fname>                mass testing option: Reads command lines from <fname>, one line per instance.

                                   Comments via # allowed, EOF signals end of <fname>. Implicitly turns on “–warnings batch”

 

partly mandatory parameters:

     URI                           host|host:port|URL|URL:port   (port 443 is assumed unless otherwise specified)

     pattern                       an ignore case word pattern of cipher hexcode or any other string in the name, kx or bits

     protocol                      is one of the STARTTLS protocols ftp,smtp,pop3,imap,xmpp,telnet,ldap

                                   (for the latter two you need e.g. the supplied openssl)

 

tuning options (can also be preset via environment variables):

     –bugs                        enables the “-bugs” option of s_client, needed e.g. for some buggy F5s

     –assume-http                 if protocol check fails it assumes HTTP protocol and enforces HTTP checks

     –ssl-native                  fallback to checks with OpenSSL where sockets are normally used

     –openssl <PATH>              use this openssl binary (default: look in $PATH, $RUN_DIR of testssl.sh)

     –proxy <host>:<port>         connect via the specified HTTP proxy

     -6                            use also IPv6. Works only with supporting OpenSSL version and IPv6 connectivity

     –sneaky                      leave less traces in target logs: user agent, referer

 

output options (can also be preset via environment variables):

     –warnings <batch|off|false>  ”batch” doesn’t wait for keypress, “off” or “false” skips connection warning

     —quiet                       don‘t output the banner. By doing this you acknowledge usage terms normally appearing in the banner

     –wide                        wide output for tests like RC4, BEAST. PFS also with hexcode, kx, strength, RFC name

     –show-each                   for wide outputs: display all ciphers tested — not only succeeded ones

     –mapping <no-rfc>            don’t display the RFC Cipher Suite Name

     —color <0|1|2>               0: no escape or other codes,  1: b/w escape codes,  2: color (default)

     —colorblind                  swap green and blue in the output

     —debug <0–6>                 1: screen output normal but keeps debug output in /tmp/.  2–6: see “grep -A 5 ‘^DEBUG=’ testssl.sh”

 

file output options (can also be preset via environment variables):

     —log, —logging              logs stdout to <NODE–YYYYMMDD–HHMM.log> in current working directory

     —logfile <logfile>           logs stdout to <file/NODE–YYYYMMDD–HHMM.log> if file is a dir or to specified log file

     —json                        additional output of findings to JSON file <NODE–YYYYMMDD–HHMM.json> in cwd

     —jsonfile <jsonfile>         additional output to JSON and output JSON to the specified file

     —csv                         additional output of findings to CSV file  <NODE–YYYYMMDD–HHMM.csv> in cwd

     —csvfile <csvfile>           set output to CSV and output CSV to the specified file

     —append                      if <csvfile> or <jsonfile> exists rather append then overwrite

 

All options requiring a value can also be called with ‘=’ e.g. testssl.sh –t=smtp —wide —openssl=/usr/bin/openssl <URI>.

 

<URI> is always the last parameter.

 

Need HTML output? Just pipe through “aha” (ANSI HTML Adapter: github.com/theZiz/aha) like

 

   “testssl.sh <options> <URI> | aha >output.html”

 

userid@somehost:~ %

National Screening Room, a project by the Library of Congress, is a collection of early films (from the late 19th to most of the 20th century), digitized by the LOC for public use and perusal. Sadly, it’s not made clear which of the films are clearly in the public domain, and so free to remix and reuse, but it’s still fun to browse the collection for a look at cultural and cinematic history.

There’s a bunch of early Thomas Edison kinetoscopes, including this kiss between actors May Irwin and John C. Rice that reportedly brought the house down in 1896:

Or these two 1906 documentaries of San Francisco, one from shortly before the earthquake, and another just after (the devastation is really remarkable, and the photography, oddly beautiful):

There’s a silent 1926 commercial for the first wave of electric refrigerators, promoted by the Electric League of Pittsburgh, promising an exhibition with free admission! (wow guys, thanks)

There’s also 33 newsreels made during the 40s and 50s by All-American News, the first newsreels aimed at a black audience. As you might guess by the name and the dates, it’s pretty rah-rah, patriotic, support-the-war-effort stuff, but also includes some slice-of-life stories and examples of economic cooperation among working-to-middle-class black families at the time.

I hope this is just the beginning, and we can get more and more of our cinematic patrimony back into the public commons where it belongs.

More about…

Want to learn how to hack? Hacking isn’t a single subject that anyone can pick up overnight. If you want to hack like a pro, you won’t be able to read just one article and visit a few hacking websites.

But if you spend a lot of time studying and practicing your craft, you can learn to hack.

White Hat vs. Black Hat Hacking

There are two forms of hacking: “white hat” and “black hat“.

White hat hackers call themselves ethical hackers, in that they find vulnerabilities in an effort to make systems and applications more secure.

However, there’s a whole other community of hackers—black hat hackers—who find vulnerabilities only to exploit them as much as possible.

Now that you know what sort of community you may be entering, let’s get on with the list of top sites where you can learn to hack.

At Hacking Tutorial, you’ll find a list of resources that’ll teach you some in-depth tricks to hacking various apps, operating systems, and devices.

Some examples of the content you’ll find here include:

• Articles like, “3 Steps GMail MITM Hacking Using Bettercap”
• Tutorials like, “How to Bypass Windows AppLocker”
• Hacking news
• Phone hacking tips
• Reviews of online hacking tools
• A significant library of free hacking eBooks and reports

The articles are usually short, and the grammar isn’t always perfect. However many include highly technical, step-by-step instructions on how to do the task at hand.

The tricks and scripts work unless the exploit has been patched. You may have to dig through some non-hacking articles. But for the volume of technical tricks and resources you’ll find there it’s deserving of a mention.

Hackaday is a blog made for engineers. It’s less about hacking with code, and more about hacking just about anything.

Posts include innovative projects including robotic builds


How to Control Robots With a Game Controller and Arduino




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, modifying vintage electronics and gadgets, and much more.

Over the years, Hack A Day has transformed the site into a fairly popular blog.

They also have another domain called hackaday.io, where they host reader-submitted engineering projects. These include some really cool projects and innovative designs.

This site redefines the meaning of the word hacking by helping you learn how to hack electronic devices like a Gameboy or a digital camera and completely modifying it.

The encourage readers to building electronics for the sole purpose of hacking other commercial devices. They also host an annual Hackaday Prize competition. This is where thousands of hardware hackers compete to win the ultimate prize for the best build of the year.

Hack In The Box has really changed significantly over the years. The site is actually made up of four major subdomains, each with a specific purpose meant to serve hackers around the world.

The site remains focused on security and ethical hacking. The news and magazine sections showcase frequently updated content specifically for hackers or those learning to hack.

The four major sections of the site include:

• HITBSecNews: This popular blog provides security news covering every major industry. Major topics include major platforms like Microsoft, Apple, and Linux. Other topics include international hacking news, science and technology, and even law.
• HITBSecConf: This is an annual conference drawing in hacking professionals and researchers from around the word. It’s held every year in the Netherlands.
• HITBPhotos: A simple collection of photo albums, mostly covering images from the yearly conference.
• HITBMagazine: This page highlights the quarterly print magazine that Hack In The Box used to send out to subscribers until 2014. Even though the blog section of the site is still active and frequently updated, no additional print magazines are being produced.

This site is less of a place to go for actually technical hacking tips, and more of a daily spot to get your latest fix of online hacking news.

HITB is a great resource for news for anyone interested in the latest gossip throughout the international hacking community.

Hack This Site.org is one of the coolest, free programmer training sites where you can learn how to hack. Just accept one of the challenges along the left navigation pane of the main page.

The site designers offer various “missions”. This is where you need to figure out the vulnerability of a site and then attempt to use your new-found hacking skills (you’ve carefully studied all of the articles on the site, right?) to hack the web page.

Missions include Basic, Realistic, Application, Programming and many others.

If you’re able to figure out how to properly hack any of the most difficult missions on this site, then you’ve definitely earned the title of “hacker”.

If you’re looking to kick start a career in white-hat cybersecurity, Cybrary is a great resource. Here, you’ll find hundreds of free courses covering areas like Microsoft Server security, doing security assessments, penetration testing, and a collection of CompTIA courses as well.

The site includes forums, practice labs, educational resources, and even a job board. Whether you’re just starting to consider a cybersecurity career, or you’re already in the middle of one, this site is a good one to bookmark.

Whether you’re a white hat or a black hat hacker, the Exploit Database is an important tool in any hacker’s toolbelt.

It’s frequently updated with the latest exploits affecting applications, web services, and more. If you’re looking to learn more about how past hacks worked and were patched, the Papers section of the site is for you.

This area includes downloads of magazines that cover many of the biggest exploits to ever hit the world in the past decade.

Learning How to Be a Hacker

More industries continue to gravitate toward a cloud based approach. The world keeps moving more of its critical data to the internet. This means the world of hacking and counter-hacking is only going to grow.

Cybersecurity is a booming field, and a good one to get into if you’re looking for a lucrative, future-proof career.

If you’re interested in the history of hacking, our list of the world’s most famous hackers and what happened to them


10 of the World’s Most Famous Hackers & What Happened to Them




10 of the World’s Most Famous Hackers & What Happened to Them
Not all hackers are bad. The good guys — “white-hat hackers” — use hacking to improve computer security. Meanwhile “black-hat hackers” are the ones who cause all the trouble, just like these guys.
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is a fascinating read. The lesson to learn is simple. Black hat hacking may sometimes pay more, but white hat hacking ensures that you’ll stay out of trouble.

The LectroFan has 10 white noise settings. In this video, the lowest frequency (“dark noise”) is softer and rumbly, while the highest frequency (“white noise”) is about as loud as a garbage disposal.

We think the LectroFan by ASTI is the white noise machine you’ll want on your nightstand. Our testing showed that the LectroFan’s random, nonrepeating white noise settings allowed it to mask intruding noises as well as or better than the other machines in the group. It’s the second-smallest machine we tested, too, so you can pack it for travel in addition to using it at home. The LectroFan is also one of the easiest models to use, with a simple three-button interface to toggle among 10 random, nonrepeating white noise offerings and 30 volume settings in one of the widest volume ranges we found.

To be honest, all the machines we tried sounded more or less alike (except the Dohm DS, which had a more complex, layered sound). The LectroFan didn’t sound better than the other machines, but it was just as capable or slightly better at masking sound during our noise tests. It generates white noise electronically using algorithms, so the sounds it produces are truly random and won’t repeat, something that Michael Perlis, director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told me is a good feature of a white noise machine for sleep. The LectroFan’s 10 white noise settings, ranging from “dark noise” (low frequency) to “white noise” (high frequency), sounded like variations of low rumbles, rushing wind, or static—neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and definitely random and meaningless.

This video demonstrates how the LectroFan has a much higher white noise frequency than the Dohm DS, our runner-up. It’s also about half the size.

According to our sound-level tests, the LectroFan’s 30 volume settings ranged from a whisper-quiet 31 dBa to a thoroughly loud 80 dBa (about as loud as a garbage disposal). All the machines we tested measured under 85 dBa at their max setting (when we measured sound from 18 inches away). A machine that allows for fine volume control, like the LectroFan, can be at its lowest possible setting yet still block noise. By comparison, some of the other machines we tried had a narrower volume range that we found more difficult to adjust. To be clear, we didn’t notice a huge variation in the sound-blocking performance among the machines, and they were typically within a few decibels of one another for the minimum volume required to mask the offending noise.

Measuring just 4 inches in diameter and 2 inches high, the LectroFan is the second-smallest machine in our test group. It takes up little room on a nightstand, and it’s small enough to go into your luggage for travel. (It conveniently uses a USB cord and wall-power adapter, which you could swap for your USB wall charger to save more space when you’re packing.)

With its minimalist, three-button interface, we found changing noise settings and volume on the LectroFan easier than on the other white noise machines, which had more-complicated controls. The LectroFan was the only white noise machine we tested that was easy to adjust or turn off in the dark, without our needing to see or pick up the device. This model also has a 60-minute timer, a useful feature if you want to set the machine to run as you fall asleep and then turn off.

The LectroFan features 10 “fan sounds,” including “box fan,” “attic fan,” and “industrial fan.” Unless you particularly like fan sounds, we’re not sure why you would need or use these settings, so we ignored them, since the white noise settings worked better at masking sounds.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Since the LectroFan is so small, we wish it had a built-in battery, which would be helpful for travel or if you don’t have an outlet nearby.

After more than a year of long-term testing the LectroFan, one of our editors has found that because the buttons each share two functions, he sometimes accidentally turns on the wrong one. This sometimes results in the machine going into the timer mode, thus turning off the machine in the middle of the night, or starting different sounds that wake his kids. He’s also used our runner-up, the Marpac Dohm and says that model is a little easier to turn on and off without accidentally starting another function.