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The editorial board of the New York Times seems to have a simple mission: fabricate lies both blatant and bold in order to sell ideas to their readers that they couldn’t sell if they were […]
The post OH, LOOK: The NY Times Editorial Board Is Lying To Their Readers Again appeared first on Bearing Arms.
via Bearing Arms
OH, LOOK: The NY Times Editorial Board Is Lying To Their Readers Again
By David Murphy
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read the full article here.
After spending 50 hours researching 19 different monitors and testing six finalists, we recommend the 24-inch Dell UltraSharp U2415 to most people looking for a large computer monitor right now. It has the best picture quality of any 24-inch display we tested, indistinguishable from perfection thanks to its factory-calibrated IPS screen.
For most people, a 24-inch monitor hits the sweet spot of size and price. Most 24-inch monitors these days have 19201080 screens, but we prefer the slightly less common 19201200. A 19201200-pixel monitor with a 16:10 aspect ratio gives you more vertical space than a 1080p monitor with its 16:9 proportions. The taller screen makes a big difference for most office work, Web browsing, and gaming. You’ll still have black bars when you watch movies, but you’ll probably have those on a 1080p monitor, too. If you’re still using a monitor smaller than 20 inches, give your eyes a break by upgrading to our pick.
The Wirecutter’s Chris Heinonen helped design our monitor testing process, which relies on two measuring devices: a $1,200 i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer from X-Rite and a $170 Spyder4 Pro. We customized tests in the CalMAN 5 software calibration suite to measure each monitor’s maximum and minimum brightness levels, gamma, color temperature, and color accuracy.
Most people don’t change their monitor settings, so default performance is critical. We measured each monitor on its default picture mode as well as on its sRGB mode where applicable. For each test, we adjusted the monitor’s brightness to 140 cd/m—a good value for everyday use—and set the contrast as high as it could go without losing white details. We left every other setting at the default value. We then used each of our finalists for a few days to get a feel for their features.
Dell’s UltraSharp U2415 is the best 24-inch monitor for most people because its factory-calibrated display looks practically perfect, its 19201200-pixel resolution gives it 11 percent more screen space than a 1080p monitor offers, and its ultrathin bezel makes its screen feel bigger and look better than monitors with thicker bezels. Its stand lifts, tilts, pivots, rotates, and swivels, so you can position the screen exactly where you need it. Equipped with HDMI and DisplayPort connections as well as five USB 3.0 ports, this monitor gives you more flexibility than most other models for anything you do at your desk. Other 24-inch monitors have a subset of these attributes, but no other has them all. The U2415 also costs hundreds less than most monitors with comparable display quality.
If the U2415 is unavailable, we recommend the Dell UltraSharp U2412M. This model’s default picture quality is better than that of other uncalibrated monitors, and it has some of the same features we love in our primary pick, including a 1200p resolution, excellent adjustability, VESA support, and a great warranty and premium panel guarantee. However, it lacks a factory-calibrated mode and HDMI, has USB 2.0 ports instead of USB 3.0 connections, and uses pulse width modulation to dim the backlight.
You won’t find any 24-inch monitors that are better than the U2415. If you have more money to spend, you should get our 27-inch pick, the Dell UltraSharp U2715H. This 25601440 monitor has a bigger screen and more working space than a 24-inch, 1200p monitor. For Windows users, it’s a better choice than a 4K monitor, because it doesn’t have any app display-scaling issues (and you don’t need to spend as much money to play games at high settings on it).
If you need a decent but cheap monitor, get the ASUS VS239H. It’s a pretty good 23-inch, 19201080 IPS monitor that usually costs less than $150, but you give up a lot to get to that point: Its screen has 11 percent fewer pixels than our 19201200 primary pick, its colors are less accurate, and it has very limited adjustability, no DisplayPort connections, no USB ports, and an ugly on-screen display. Still, it looks a lot better than the other monitors in its price range, which tend to use lower-quality TN (twisted nematic) panels.
The best 24-inch monitor is the Dell UltraSharp U2415, which has the best picture quality of any display we tested. The UltraSharp U2412M is a distant runner-up, as it has the same 1200p resolution but lacks factory calibration, USB 3.0, and HDMI. If you have more money to spend, we recommend our 27-inch pick, the 2560×1440 Dell UltraSharp U2715H, and if you’re on a budget, we recommend the ASUS VS239H-P, which is the cheapest good IPS monitor available.
This guide may have been updated by The Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.
To a lot of gun people, “action star” brings to mind flashy but impractical firearms, one-liners, and unfortunately often a painfully phony relationship between the actor and his weapons. However, as the shooting sports have exploded in popularity since 2004, we’ve seen an increase in celebrity personalities joining the fold, or revealing that they were a […]
The post Watch Keanu Reeves Shoot 3-Gun appeared first on The Firearm Blog.
Tonight, the remaining Republican presidential candidates will square off in another debate in Detroit. Here’s how to tune in online without a cable subscription.
The debate tonight will feature Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. With only four candidates on the stage, this will be the smallest debate yet. The event begins at 9PM ET/6PM PT tonight on Fox News. Here’s how to watch it online:
If you do have a cable subscription, you can also watch on your Android or iOS mobile device with Fox News Go. This method requires a cable login, so it’s not as easy to access, but if you can borrow a login from someone, it may be worthwhile.
Everything You Need to Know About Tonight’s Fox News GOP Debate | Fox News
Contact the author at eric@lifehacker.com.
via Lifehacker
How to Watch Tonight’s Fox News Republican Debate, No Cable Required
During my freshman year at the University of Georgia, I can recall many late nights staring down into a styrofoam canister, slurping ramen noodles in hopes that said consumption would somehow alleviate the foreshadowed morning of pain, a result of the one-too-many-drinks I’d consumed hours earlier downtown. That was then. Nowadays, I’ve come to accept […]
via The Art of Manliness
How to Make Authentic Ramen at Home
Men who are deficient in vitamin D often have more aggressive prostate cancer at the time of surgery, according to a recent study.
via Futurity
Low vitamin D predicts aggressive prostate cancer
A new website offers free access to more than 20,000 searchable images of handwritten Registers produced by Archbishops of York from 1225-1650.
via Futurity
Site lets you search 20,000 images from ancient York Registers
You played with it for hours on end after it was first released, but by the time The Force Awakens hit theaters months later, you had probably lost interest in your Sphero BB-8. But don’t bury the little droid in a drawer just yet, because a free app will make your BB-8 even more exciting than the day you first opened it.
The biggest fad in the toy industry right now is the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math education) movement, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was started as a clever way to introduce kids to intimidating educational topics through the use of fun toys and games. Kids have the opportunity to discover that challenging fields of study can actually be quite enjoyable, and it’s led to a boon in educational toys.
The problem is that many toymakers have latched onto STEM as merely a buzzword to throw around in marketing materials, when in reality the toy has little educational value. Is a preschooler really going to learn how to code by connecting the pieces of a giant rolling caterpillar together? That’s debatable.
But Sphero, makers of BB-8 and the original remote controlled ball that the droid toy was built on, have wholeheartedly (and properly) embraced STEM with an impressive app environment revealed a few months ago. The SPRK Lightning Lab app (available for Android, iOS, or other devices) allows anyone to write custom programs for Sphero’s rolling ball with an impressive amount of control and access to the toy’s capabilities, but with an approach that won’t frustrate amateurs, or limit experienced developers.
Back in August of last year the Sphero SPRK Edition—a clear version of the rolling ball toy that reveals all of the electronic components that power it—was announced and made available to schools who wanted a more engaging approach to programming through robotics.
But here’s the not-so-secret about the SPRK Lightning Lab app: it works with all the toys that Sphero currently sells—including BB-8—and it’s free for anyone to download and use.
You can still control and steer BB-8 around using touchscreen controls in the SPRK Lightning Lab app, but you won’t have access to all the sound effects or other special features that are included in its own app. That’s OK, though, because those will all soon be forgotten once you start playing around with the powerful drag and drop programming capabilities of the SPRK app.
When it comes to robots, Sphero and BB-8 are admittedly limited in terms of what they can actually do—at least compared to something like ATLAS. But thanks to an array of sensors (including a gyroscope and accelerometer) packed inside the plastic balls, and precision-controlled motors, there’s a surprising amount of control and flexibility within the SPRK app when it comes to not only programming how Sphero, Ollie, and BB-8 move, but also how they react to their environment and obstacles.
The whole point of a STEM toy is not only foster learning, but to also allow a child’s skills and knowledge to grow while they play. The graphical drag and drop interface of the SPRK Lightning Lab app is a tried-and-true approach to introducing someone to the intricacies and logic of coding, but at some point it will become limiting. So the app also allows users to manually edit the OVAL code which is the underlying programming language that powers Sphero, Ollie, and BB-8.
Users can quickly jump back and forth between the raw code and the graphical layout of their program, which can often help make it easier to understand what’s going on, and sometimes even what’s going wrong.
The SPRK Lightning Lab app will even appeal to those who have no desire to learn how to code or program, but are looking to squeeze some more replay value from the BB-8 they spent $150 on. The app provides access to an ever-growing community of Sphero hackers who have uploaded and shared their custom programs for anyone to download, dissect, and modify as they see fit.
The programs vary in complexity. Some simply give BB-8 the ability to liven up a party as a rolling, flashing disco ball, while others turn the droid into a color-coded Magic 8 Ball that can detect and make a prediction whenever it’s thrown into the air, using the built in accelerometer. The community is a great way to discover new ideas and techniques for programming BB-8, and can be a valuable resource if you’re stuck on a problem and need a little inspiration, or a different approach.
If you need any other reason to download and try the SPRK Lightning Lab app with your BB-8, just remember that Sphero designed it to be an educational tool for schools to help introduce kids to programming. So every time you upload a program you’ve tweaked to perfection, you can feel good about helping the children of tomorrow learn a valuable skill—in addition to having a great reason to play with BB-8 again.
Contact the author at andrewL@gizmodo.com.
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via Gizmodo
Bored With BB-8? Sphero’s SPRK App Lets You Reprogram Your Droid to Be Exciting Again
If you have Amazon Prime, you’ve probably had friends and family members ask you every once in a while if they can use your Prime account to buy stuff with free two-day shipping. Now whether you think password sharing is ethical or not, you can’t deny that it’s risky. As a Prime member, there’s one benefit you may have overlooked: you can create an Amazon Household that links multiple accounts together and shares certain Prime benefits across all linked accounts. Each Amazon Household can have two adults and four children. Once adults agree to share wallet information between accounts (e.g….
Read the full article: How to Share Amazon Prime Without Sharing Your Password
via MakeUseOf
How to Share Amazon Prime Without Sharing Your Password
Ever heard of Stendhal syndrome? It’s a condition sparked by too much choice. You’ll find sufferers in front of the spaghetti sauce section of your local supermarket, standing there, staring. You’ll find them at gun stores too. No surprise … Read More
The post Your First Carry Gun Made Easy: Guns for Beginners appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
via The Truth About Guns
Your First Carry Gun Made Easy: Guns for Beginners