December 25, 2022 - Wait, Is This a Beloved Christmas Movie, or Depressing Oscar Bait?

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Wait, Is This a Beloved Christmas Movie, or Depressing Oscar Bait? After her father falls off of a ladder while stringing Christmas lights, driven New York City career woman Lindsay Lohan is forced to play nursemaid and spend the holidays in the picturesque New England village that she thought she’d left behind. Will she reconnect with dad Jim Belushi, a crusty former high-school football coach? And will she find a love match with local newspaper editor Patrick Dempsey? He’s a handsome widower, naturally—who just happens to be preparing a special report on her dad’s decades-long history of hushed-up locker-room sexual assaults! Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative romance novel. When Mrs. Claus misplaces Santa’s naughty-or-nice list, and then burns her famous “magicalicious” gingersnaps, it’s clear even to the reindeer that she’s suffering from early-onset dementia. Olivia Colman gives a devastating portrayal of a mythical character coming to terms with the loss of self while trying to convince her emotionally straitjacketed partner (Anthony Hopkins) to stop using his job of bringing toys to every girl and boy as an excuse to ignore the looming changes in both of their lives. Continued here

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Hotels say goodbye to daily room cleanings and hello to robots as workers stay scarce Deepak Patel, 43, conducts a room inspection at the Country Inn and Suites, Baltimore North, a hotel he owns and manages with his family in Rosedale, Maryland. Rosem Morton for NPR hide caption Continued here

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Atari 50 is an incredible playable tour through video game history One of the biggest challenges in video game preservation is figuring out how to actually present old games. In 2022, there are more ways than ever to play the classics, whether it’s mini consoles, updated hardware, subscription services, retro collections, or modern rereleases. While these can make old games playable to new audiences, they aren’t always able to put them in a proper context — which is especially important for really old games like, say, Adventure on the Atari 2600. Continued here

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The Cryptic Crossword: Sunday, December 25, 2022 © 2022 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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The 25 best movies of 2022 Let me level with you: Making a list of the best movies of the year is impossible. It’s highly personal. It’s trying to rank art, which is absurd. There are thousands of movies, and I can only reasonably see several hundred, and this is my job. It’s a task nobody should really undertake. Continued here

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Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer to Leaders: Put Your Phones Away and Listen to Employees Rosalind Brewer, one of only two Black female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, has had a series of top jobs at Sam’s Club, Starbucks, Walmart, and now at Walgreens Boots Alliance. She talks about the challenges of walking into a new company or industry and projecting the confidence you need to be able to do your job from day one. She says starts by putting yourself in a learning position before you even take a leadership position. She’s worked the drive-thru at Starbucks and dug deep into trucking logistics at Walmart. “I was willing to take a step down to go much further, and then that’s when my career began to really explode. I was in a learning mode, but I took a step back to get ahead.” Continued here

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Amy Coney Barrett appears likely to block the GOP's latest attack on democracy A group of North Carolina Republican lawmakers asked the Court to embrace a deranged reading of the federal Constitution in order to force the state to adopt gerrymandered congressional maps. But that reading would, as former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal told the justices on Wednesday, require them to strike down hundreds of state constitutional provisions protecting voting rights, limiting gerrymandering, and otherwise governing how elections are conducted. Continued here

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7 Essential Skills That Separate Successful People From Everyone Else (A Short, Practical Guide) Writing, public speaking, negotiating, and 4 other essential skills. Continued here

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Research: The Unintended Consequences of Pay Transparency Pay transparency refers to a pay communications policy in which a company voluntarily provides pay-related information to employees — for example, about the process of the pay system (process transparency) and actual pay levels or ranges (outcome transparency), or even an open policy for employees to freely share information about their pay (communications transparency). Companies around the world have been increasingly adopting pay transparency policies and practices as a means of narrowing the gender pay gap and fostering an engaged and positive working environment that builds trust. Pay transparency can help companies achieve these goals — but it can also have unintended consequences. The authors present three pitfalls to watch out for, plus ways to avoid them. Continued here

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The Best Low-Impact Exercises for Older Adults Beyond Walking and Stretching | Livestrong.com Whether an activity is low- or high-impact depends on how much force it puts on your body. "Low-impact exercises are ones that don't place a significant strain on your joints," explains Emily Johnson, founder of StrongerU Senior Fitness. Your feet aren't pounding on the ground with each step, so you're less likely to experience pressure or pain in places like your ankles or knees. Continued here

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Why Your Late Twenties Is the Worst Time of Your Life The “quarter-life” crisis experienced by many 20- and 30-somethings typically involves four stages:1. Being locked into a commitment (relationship, job, housing, etc.)2. Ending that commitment, and now feeling isolated3. Internal reflection, followed by exploring new interests4. Emerging from the crisis much happier and with a greater sense of purpose Continued here

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Bigger, Better, Cheaper: How India Is Building a Private Empire in Space The same month, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned Digantara in his monthly radio show as part of India’s cutting-edge space companies that the world should look out for. By 2021, Digantara had raised millions in seed funding. It is India’s first private company that’s ready to send 40 satellites to identify and potentially clean up space junk. Space junk moves 15 times the speed of a bullet, and can smash spacecraft into pulp. The space junk monitoring market is, by one estimate, worth $2.9 billion this year.  Continued here

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What 100 books and forgotten carpets tell us about the history of India On Sunday, I was at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa with a singular mission to visit two exhibitions: an archival project Forgotten Carpets of the Jaipur Court; and a showcase of the country’s multiplicity through 100 books at India By the Book in the 21st Century. Continued here

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These companies ran an experiment: Pay workers their full salary to work fewer days Companies in the United Kingdom are about to complete the biggest trial of a four-day work week ever undertaken, anywhere in the world. The program's thesis was a provocative one: that for six months, these companies would reduce their workers' hours by 20%, to 32 hours a week, but continue to pay them 100% of their pay. Continued here

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The culture wars are pushing some teachers to leave the classroom James Whitfield, former principal at Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas, in a photo taken at his home in Hurst, Texas, last year. Ben Torres for the Texas Tribune hide caption Continued here

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Barnwell surveys the 2023 NFL QB landscape: These 19 teams -- including the Pats -- could try to upgrade The NFL quarterback carousel spins every year, and the 2023 offseason will be no exception. While there's still plenty of football to go this season, there are plenty of teams that have one eye on their present and another on their future. Some of those organizations are in position to make the playoffs, but unless they're one of the teams clearly in the mix for the Super Bowl with a quarterback any other team would envy, they're just getting by under center. Continued here

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What's Behind the Exploding Prices of Pro Sports Franchises? Teams were once considered poor, unpredictable investments. Today they’re among the most coveted assets in the world. What changed? Continued here

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Roger Penrose: "Consciousness must be beyond computable physics" EARLY in his career, the University of Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose inspired the artist M. C. Escher to create Ascending and Descending, the visual illusion of a loop of staircase that seems to be eternally rising. It remains a fitting metaphor for Penrose’s ever enquiring mind. During his long career, he has collaborated with Stephen Hawking to uncover the secrets of the big bang, developed a quantum theory of consciousness with anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff and won the Nobel prize in physics for his prediction of regions where the gravitational field would be so intense that space-time itself would break down, the so-called singularity at the heart of a black hole. Undeterred by the march of time – Penrose turned 91 this year – he is continuing to innovate, and even planning communications with future universes. Continued here

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The mystery of rising prices. Are greedy corporations to blame for inflation? Many economists and politicians on the left point to the war in Ukraine (for pushing up oil prices, which bleeds into most everything else), and also greedy companies, many of which, despite tales of supply chain snarls and rising costs, have been bringing in record profits. (Corporations, in aisle 4, with the price gun.) Continued here

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This is why streaming Netflix, Disney Plus, and HBO Max keeps getting more expensive The truth is, this trend isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Streaming services need to raise their prices or embrace advertising if they want to meet investors’ expectations. They’re just going to have to risk losing subscribers who don’t want to pay these jacked-up prices along the way. Continued here

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The Power Of Rest - Can A Purposeful Pause Be The First Step In Hitting Reset? Sometimes an idea burrows its way into the culture and takes up home there, building a little nest in our consciousness with continued repetition. One such concept was the pursuit of ‘happiness’. Later, there was ‘kindness’, and today ‘tenderness’. I tend to come to these things brittle with cynicism. I’ve argued in the past, for example, against the ‘happiness industry’, which through expensive interventions, like courses and coaches, sold the idea that you constantly needed to consume its products in order to achieve joy, thereby displacing your attention from the root of your unhappiness. But recently life events – I talk about family shock and tragedy in as neutral and passive a voice as possible, so as not to give it the drama it yearns for – have cracked something open in me. Continued here

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Inside Elon Musk's first meeting with Twitter employees During a nearly one-hour Q&A session, which The Verge obtained a recording of — you can read a full transcript below — Musk was blunt about Twitter’s financial state, his ambition to turn Twitter into an app for payments, his love for “gizmos,” and that he now expects employees to work with a “maniacal sense of urgency.” Continued here

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How do Christmas cakes last for years? Inside the “perfect storm” of preservation Love or hate them, there’s no denying some fruitcakes are not just old — they are ancient. A mainstay of the holiday season, it is about as welcome in some houses as a lump of coal or a cousin’s unexpected (and uninvited) plus one. In the 1960s, former The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson became the unofficial figurehead of fruitcake phobia, joking: “The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other, year after year.” Continued here

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A guide to the world of mud volcanoes In the following weeks, water, boiling-hot mud and natural gas were added to the mixture. When the eruption intensified, mud started to spread over the fields. Alarmed residents evacuated, hoping to wait out the eruption safely. Except that it didn’t stop. Weeks passed, and the spreading mud engulfed entire villages. In a frantic race against time, the Indonesian government began to build levees to contain the mud and stop the spread. When the mud overtopped these levees, they built new ones behind the first set. The government eventually succeeded in stopping the mud’s advance, but not before the flows had wiped out a dozen villages and forced 60,000 people to relocate. Continued here

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In search of an attainable New Year's resolution It’s that time of year again — when seemingly every advertisement, social media post, or well-meaning loved one is quick to remind you how you’re due for a refresh, a restart, a rebrand. Self-improvement is difficult any time of year, but you may feel extra pressure to embark on a life change at the top of the new year. The desire to set goals often comes on the heels of the start of a new week, month, year, semester, or birthday, dubbed the “fresh start effect.” When the slate is wiped clean in any capacity, people feel more compelled to conquer a challenge. Continued here

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Are You Really Super Busy, Or Are You Just Super Disorganized? Most everyone I know is very busy “grinding.” They wake up, they grind. They sleep, they stop grinding for a few hours (unless it’s their teeth), then they wake up the next day and grind again. This is the formula for an American life: Rise and grind until you die. It’s become a sort of mantra we tell ourselves and anyone else who asks how we’re doing. For the uninitiated, “grinding” is short-hand for “working super hard.” It’s a capitalist-driven dick-measuring contest, a way of assuring yourself and anyone around you that you’re working so hard that you couldn’t possibly work any harder. And to be clear, for a lot of people that may be true — a 2014 Gallup report estimated that the average full-time worker in the U.S. works 47 hours a week, “one of the highest figures in the world, and significantly higher than the rates in Western Europe,” reports The Independent.  Continued here

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All the new video games launching in 2023 Already we can count more than 100 major video game releases expected in 2023, from highly anticipated RPGs like Starfield and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, to new, mainline entries in series like Final Fantasy and Street Fighter, and the long-awaited return of franchises like Diablo and Pikmin. Continued here

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Will this be India's decade? Experts around the world are debating the economy's rise While some argue a range of factors indicate an ‘impending economic boom’ for India, others suggest it is another false dawn. Continued here

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Is your favorite food genetic? Study identifies 325 genes that influence taste In the last 40 years, obesity has constantly been rising. This has happened despite the popularity of all kinds of diets ranging from low carb, paleo, or even ice cream based. Many scientists believe this is because cheap junk food has filled supermarket shelves and fast food takeaways. This food is high in calories and other not-so-healthy ingredients such as saturated fats, simple sugars, and salt. But it’s designed to taste delicious. Taste is a dealbreaker when it comes to deciding what to eat, what diet plans, or not. Yet our understanding of what makes food taste good is limited. My team’s research explored how genes and biological processes influence which foods we find irresistible. We partnered with the UK biobank to ask the participants in our study how much they liked 139 foods, rating them from one to nine on a questionnaire, with nine being the most delicious. UK biobank is a collection of almost 500,000 U.K. volunteers who agreed to provide their personal information for scientific purposes. They were aged from 50 to 70 at the time of our study. Continued here

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These 7 charts show how life got pricier (and, yes, cheaper!) in 2022 Yikes. It was a rough year for the old bank account: Housing, electricity and heating oil got pricier, and our pandemic-era savings petered out. Maybe not too surprising that we started charging more to our credit cards. The end of the home-buying bonanza did slice home prices (silver lining!), but mainly because mortgage rates nearly doubled (very dark cloud). Continued here

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Space satellites could give us clean energy — if they overcome a key obstacle There’s still a long way to go before beaming power from space becomes a profitable venture. Many space-based technologies are still looking for their “killer app” — the thing that they do better than anything else and makes them indispensable to whoever needs to have that app to solve a problem. At this point in the development of humanity, most of those killer apps will involve solving a problem back on Earth. Space-based solar power satellites are certainly one of those technologies. Continued here

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'Glass Onion’s biggest celebrity cameos, explained Here’s what you should know about all the biggest cameos in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Director Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is packed to the gills with famous faces. Not only does Daniel Craig reprise his Knives Out role as Benoit Blanc in the film, but the actors that fill out Glass Onion’s core cast also include Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr., and Kate Hudson. Continued here

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Skoll! New book goes behind the scenes on 'The Northman' The Northman: A Call to the Gods takes Viking lovers deep into director Robert Eggers’ creative process. Depicting the savagery and mysticism of 10th-century Viking culture, director Robert Eggers’ haunting historical epic The Northman is the bold tale of a prince’s revenge injected with Shakespearean overtones. Continued here

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Conquering a Culture of Indecision Why? During the meeting, people never expressed their real views. Intimidated by power dynamics, constrained by formality and mistrust, they spoke their lines woodenly, without committing to the plan. The apparent consensus belied the group’s true sentiment—unspoken reservations that strangled the idea after the meeting. Continued here

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The worst Tom Cruise sci-fi movie on Netflix reveals a possible path to nuclear fusion, physicists say Last week’s breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology dazzled the world. Now, the world is looking for ways we could actually use fusion to power our basic needs — and they may want to turn to Hollywood for inspiration. Yes, really. Many movies and shows from Back to the Future to Star Trek have featured fusion technology, but only in the vaguest outlines. Yet there’s one underrated Hollywood blockbuster with a bizarre fusion technology that might actually work. Continued here

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These science-backed hacks will keep your Christmas tree fresh for weeks Every year, somewhere between 25 million and 30 million Christmas trees are sold in the United States. If you’re one of the people who decorate for the holiday with a freshly cut Christmas tree, you might be wondering how to keep it looking good all the way through Santa’s visit — and maybe even a little beyond. Curtis VanderSchaaf is a forestry specialist at the Mississippi State University Extension Service who knows a thing or two about conifers. The Conversation asked him for guidance on how to keep a fresh green Christmas tree from becoming a giant pile of brown needles for as long as possible. Whether you end up with a Douglas fir, a Scotch pine, a Leyland cypress, a piñon, or any other evergreen, he says the quality of care you provide is a major factor in the prolonged freshness of your tree. Continued here

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Your own personal Google: how Mem plans to reinvent note-taking apps with AI In the summer of 2019, Kevin Moody and Dennis Xu started meeting with investors to pitch their new app. They had this big idea about reshaping the way users’ personal information moves around the internet, coalescing all their data into a single tool in a way that could actually work for them. But they quickly ran into a problem: all of their mock-ups and descriptions made it seem like they were building a note-taking app. And even in those hazy early days of product development — before they had a prototype, a design, even a name — they were crystal clear that this would not be a note-taking app. Continued here

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The best video game romance of 2022 breathes new life into a timeless trope At its heart, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a story about how a troubled world finally found peace. However, amid dreary themes like death and mourning, it can’t help but make my heart skip a beat with the unforgettable romance between its two leads. Xenoblade creator Tetsuya Takahashi always has a place for love in his works. Xenoblade 3 especially embodies this “red string of fate,” or idea that two soulmates will always find their way to each other, with its cycle of rebirth. Continued here

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How postbiotics could boost your health and even help reverse ageing IT IS 9.30am and you are feeling a bit off. You have just finished a round of antibiotics and know your gut microbes have taken a hit. You pop a pill and head out, safe in the knowledge that while the microscopic communities in your intestines may take a while to regroup, the health benefits they confer will be back up to speed much sooner. Welcome to the world of postbiotics. Continued here

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If You Are Known for These  Behaviors, Your Emotional Intelligence Could Be Higher Than Most People Start 2023 fresh by growing your emotional intelligence with these simple techniques. Continued here

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Birds could hold the secret to interstellar flight Interstellar travel is primarily a problem of propulsion and — even more acute — power. Stand on a coastal shore and watch how eagles, ravens, seagulls, and crows take flight in high winds. It’s an inspiring sight, to be sure. Additionally, it illustrates an important concept in aerial mechanics, like how the proper angling of wings can allow birds to exploit differences in wind speed to hover in mid-air. Similarly, birds can use these same differences in wind speed to gain bursts of velocity to soar and dive. These same lessons can be applied to space, where spacecraft could perform special maneuvers to pick up bursts of speed from “space weather” (solar wind). Continued here

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In Defense of Recipes Makenna Held is not interested in recipes. “Most people live their lives to recipes,” they say in the first episode of La Pitchoune: Cooking in France. The show, now streaming on HBO Max, chronicles Held and their husband, who bought Julia Child’s former home in the south of France, and opened up a “recipe-free” cooking school on the property. “I always say that our cooking school isn’t really a cooking school, but it’s more of an approach on how to live. Life is just a little bit more delicious without recipes.” Held’s mission is to arm their students with the skills to trust their own sense of experimentation in the kitchen. And broadly, to rid the world of recipes. “I’m not a fan of recipes in any situation. Cooking, leadership, business, relationships,” they write on their business site. “Why? Because recipes erode sovereignty.” (Emphasis theirs, as if the statement needed to be any more striking). Continued here

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The 50 best video games of 2022 It’s becoming increasingly difficult, as the years go by, to describe my favorite video games. Simple terms like “open world” and “first-person shooter” have lost much of their original meaning. “Turn-based strategy” isn’t doing all that much work anymore. Even “Metroidvania,” a portmanteau created specifically to denote a certain set of design tenets, often comes with a cascade of asterisks, caveats, and parentheticals. Continued here

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The deranged Supreme Court case that threatens US democracy, explained The opening brief in Moore v. Harper, an extraordinarily high-stakes election case that the Supreme Court will hear December 7, is one of the least persuasive documents that I’ve ever read in any context. And I’ve read both Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal. Continued here

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The 30 best couch co-op games for Nintendo Switch Many games are huge. Others are endless. Some are so exciting that they swallow our news feeds whole. That’s where Polygon’s What to Play comes in: We curate the best, most innovative, and most intriguing games on every platform, so you can spend less time searching, and more time playing. Continued here

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Henry Ford, Innovation, and That "Faster Horse" Quote We’ve all been in conversations on the topics of creativity and innovation when Henry Ford’s most famous adage is (excuse the pun) trotted out, usually accompanied by a knowing smirk and air of self-evidence. Battle lines are quickly drawn. One side vehemently argues the merits of innovating vis-à-vis customer feedback; the other argues that true innovation is created by singularly gifted visionaries who ignore customer input and instead manufacture innovation based solely on their prophetic vision for a better future. Continued here

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How the cost of living crisis is ruining women's confidence “I’ve stopped getting acrylics, sunbeds and haircuts. I used to get my nails done every month, and get balayage done. Now I’m giving myself haircuts and doing my own nails because there’s just no way I can afford it anymore,” says 24-year-old communications consultant Siobhan Fitzsimons. “It’s heartbreaking to be working so hard and in real terms to be earning less money than I did when I first left uni. I’m living in my overdraft, and when I’ve been paid I think ‘oh I’ll treat myself and get nails done’ and then I look at my balance and it’s just not even an option.” Continued here

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'Made My Blood Run Cold': Unmasking a TikTok Creator Who Doesn't Really Exist KENMARE, Ireland – Nestled in the Ring of Kerry, the sleepy town of Kenmare is shrouded in a mist that runs off its rolling hills. Home to just 1,563 people, it maintains a unique, Wes Anderson-style charm; in the modern world yet not entirely of it. It is a million miles away from the TikTok drama that surrounds one of its newest residents, Carrie Jade Williams. Continued here

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Rivalry Rematches Are the Future of the College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff field is set with Georgia, Michigan, TCU and Ohio State, setting up a potential championship game rematch of The Game. Is that a bad thing? Continued here

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Amazon keeps selling out of these 45 totally genius things under $20 for your home Popularity has a downside. It can often mean that the thing you’ve just heard about and must have is sold out — curses! Especially when there are problems with the supply chain, people are panic buying, and online shopping has become everyone’s go-to, the danger of sellouts is high. That’s why Amazon keeps selling out of these 45 totally genius things under $20 for your home. But they are in stock — at least for now — and you probably need some. The incredible insulated Champagne glasses here, for example, are perfect for any season. They are beautiful, affordable, and keep your champagne cold to the last sip. And this bacon cooker that makes perfect, grease-free bacon in minutes in the microwave is a must-have, so you can have excellent bacon without the mess. But do not miss this popcorn popper that makes creating your own popcorn snacks easier than using those microwavable bags. Continued here

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Ford used a quantum computer to find better EV battery materials Quantum researchers at Ford have just published a new preprint study that modeled crucial electric vehicle (EV) battery materials using a quantum computer. While the results don’t reveal anything new about lithium-ion batteries, they demonstrate how more powerful quantum computers could be used to accurately simulate complex chemical reactions in the future.  In order to discover and test new materials with computers, researchers have to break up the process into many separate calculations: One set for all the relevant properties of each single molecule, another for how these properties are affected by the smallest  environmental changes like fluctuating temperatures, another for all the possible ways any  two molecules can interact together, and on and on. Even something that sounds simple like two hydrogen molecules bonding requires incredibly deep calculations.  Continued here

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The Soothing, Slightly Sinister World of Productivity Hacks Before starting this job, I blew $50 at CVS on neon gel pens, pleather-bound notebooks, and felt-tipped highlighters because a TikToker told me they'd make me enjoy working more. In the past month, I haven't used a single one. The TikToker in question, @Studynotesideas, is an 18-year-old with nearly 650,000 followers who produces content for the overstressed and underprepared student. Each video is shot at her desk, which features a bubblegum-pink keyboard, a collection of rainbow gel pens, and a peek at her greeting card-esque handwriting. She tells us which pens you need for seamless notes (no smudging), study methods that guarantee results (active recall), and gadgets that prevent procrastination. Her schtick is gently intimidating and reminds me of when you'd ask the overachiever in your history class for the notes you missed. Continued here

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Why Millennials Should Aim For $4 Million (For Retirement) Retirement planning is not overly complicated. But it does require strong will, some effort, discipline, and due diligence. First of all, one needs to recognize the importance of having a plan. It's never too early to have some goals and an action plan. Retirement planning requires savings on a regular basis and investing those savings wisely and relatively safely. Another important factor is the length of time those savings would be able to grow and compound. That's why we cannot overemphasize how important it is to start saving at an early age. It makes retirement planning so much easier. However, unfortunately, most of us don't get this wisdom in our 20s or even in our 30s. But at the same time, we like to remind that it's never too late, either. Even older folks who are well into their 50s could still achieve their goals, though the path will definitely be harder and will require more sacrifices. Please see our previous article from Oct. 2022 that illustrates an investment plan for folks in their 50s. Continued here

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Cloud vs. Zack: Which 'FF7' protagonist would you date? 344 readers respond Would you rather date an aloof and emotionally unavailable black cat or a peppy golden retriever that’s eager to please? That’s ostensibly what it feels like to ask yourself whether you’d rather date Cloud Strife (the protagonist of Final Fantasy VII) or Zack Fair (his dark-haired counterpart that stars in the newly remastered Crisis Core -: Final Fantasy VII-7 Reunion prequel). Continued here

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How to Clear Up Your Child's Acne Casey Gallagher, MD, is board-certified in dermatology and works as a practicing dermatologist and clinical professor. Acne can be common for tweens between 8 and 12 years old. Fortunately, early treatment can help keep your child's acne from getting worse as they enter adolescence. Continued here

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How to set up F-Droid, the open-source alternative to the Google Play Store Browsing through an app store can be frustrating. Whenever you’re looking for a simple tool to tune your guitar or remind yourself to water the plants, the results immediately ask you for money or are entirely cluttered with ads.  Now, let’s not begrudge developers for wanting to make money—most of us don’t do our jobs for charity—but the scales have tipped to the point where your phone can be actively hard to use. This is why if you have an Android device, you may enjoy F-Droid.  Continued here

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You need to watch Rian Johnson’s most inventive time-loop thriller for free ASAP Rian Johnson has become one of Hollywood’s most well-known directors. The success of The Last Jedi and Knives Out have, in fact, established him as one of the few contemporary filmmakers whose name alone can sell a project. And based on the early reviews of his Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion, it doesn’t seem like Johnson is in danger of losing his in-demand status anytime soon. 10 years ago, however, Johnson was just another director. Prior to 2012, he’d only directed two films, 2005’s Brick and 2008’s The Brothers Bloom, as well as a handful of TV episodes, but Johnson’s profile rapidly grew when Looper hit theaters in September that year. The film, which reunited Johnson with Brick star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, received widespread acclaim and earned nearly $200 million. Continued here

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Dragon Quest creator hints 'Treasures' could lead to more 'DQ11' spinoffs Dragon Quest XI was a monumental success for Square Enix, both critically and commercially, and its vibrant cast of characters is a big part of that. Dragon Quest Treasures dives into the childhood of Erik and his sister Mia, and according to series creator Yuji Horii, this might not be the last we see of DQ11 characters. “I am very happy that Dragon Quest XI was well-received around the world. However, I don’t want to feel content from this, but rather utilize it as a stepping stone to take on new challenges,” Horii tells Inverse. “As a mainline title, the story and characters of Dragon Quest XI have concluded, but there may be future spin-offs where they get to shine again.” Continued here

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12 times James Gunn broke major DC movie news on Twitter The true superhero of the DC Universe isn’t the Man of Steel or the Dark Knight. It’s James Gunn, who made waves in November when he took creative control of the franchise. Along with producer Peter Safran, Gunn has been co-chair of DC Studios since November 1. Their hiring is part of an effort by Warner Bros. Discovery to reorganize along the lines of Marvel Studios. Continued here

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From 1966 to now: the evolution of World Cup football Before the 1954 tournament, World Cups weren’t televised at all. If you wanted to know how teams played, you bought a newspaper the next day and read a column about it by some cigar-chomping sportswriter in a three-piece suit. Now fans could follow along for themselves in fuzzy black and white: And here comes Hurst, he’s got — some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over … It is now! Continued here

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Can capitalism and nature coexist? MONTREAL — At 3 on Monday morning Marco Lambertini was awake, seated in a giant conference room downtown, lit by fluorescent light and surrounded by government officials from around the world. It was far from the Swiss mountain trails he likes to hike, but he wasn’t going to miss one of the most important moments in his four-decades-long career. Continued here

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An 'Imperial Supreme Court' Asserts Its Power, Alarming Scholars The arguments this month over the role of state legislatures in setting rules for federal elections seemed to illustrate the point. The questioning suggested that the court was not prepared to adopt a novel legal theory that would upset the ordinary checks and balances at the state level in election litigation. Continued here

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Simple tricks to help you free up space on your phone You pull out your phone to snap a spontaneous photo… but get an error message because you have no space for the pic. Running out of room on your phone can be a disaster, but it’s totally avoidable. And listen: We’re not here to judge you for filling your phone—it could happen to any one of us. While the best way to free up space on your phone is to maintain your storage as you go, it’s relatively easy to clear out the junk when it’s past the point of no return. Continued here

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Pick up this refurbished Microsoft Surface 3 for $200 Personal tablets can pack plenty of power and capabilities into a relatively small package, but they can also come with a hefty price tag. Gadgets have evolved in tremendous ways, and the Microsoft Surface 3 is considered a popular success, carrying an Amazon rating of four out of five based on nearly 500 reviews. For a limited time, you can pick up a refurbished version of Microsoft Surface 3, featuring 64GB of storage space and a Windows 10 operating system for only $199.99 (reg. $230). Use those savings, with no coupon required, to upgrade your current setup or to snag a gift for the holiday season. Continued here

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Found: All the Best Christmas Movies to Watch With Your Fam If you love all things holly and jolly, then you know that no Christmas season is complete without streaming a few (or a few dozen...) holiday movies. And while Bad Santa and Love Actually are a fun holiday watch, it's always nice to find a movie that, you know, doesn't scandalize your parents or scar your kids. Whether you need some festive films to watch with mom and dad over Christmas break or some kid-friendly flicks for your little ones, we've got plenty of family Christmas movies that people of all ages can watch (and will actually enjoy), and they're all available to stream right now. Continued here

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Can dogs smell time? Just ask Donut the dog "She was a stray that came to our house when I was about 4," my husband, Matt, says. She had big, brown floppy ears and giant white and black spots on her flanks. "She was a hound mix," Matt says. "We knew she was a hound because she liked to roam," he adds. "We had to be careful not to let her get out because she would roam the neighborhood." Continued here

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15 years ago, 'Doctor Who' dropped its worst special ever — and its best showcase for David Tennant "Voyage of the Damned" perfectly represents what is both great and tricky about the over-the-top nature of Who. Realism has nothing to do with the success and brilliance of Doctor Who. From the show’s debut in 1963, the adventures of the Doctor have relied on hyperbole to power the TARDIS through all of time and space. And, on December 25, 2007, Doctor Who pushed the limits of its own hyperbolic format, nearly to the breaking point. Continued here

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Why 2022 was a year of serious reckoning for Bollywood Looking back on a year in which Bollywood seemed to be Follywood. Continued here

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Anxiety comes with sexual health side effects in men — but Viagra may not help Many people think of erection problems as a condition that only affects older men. But you don’t have to look far to find reports of the condition among men in their 20s and 30s. Some research even estimates that half of the males who report having difficulties getting or maintaining an erection are in their 30s. Yet despite how common erection problems may be — affecting nearly half of men aged 18-60 — there remains a lot of stigma and shame around having the condition. This can be especially true when you’re young, thanks to the sexual scripts many have grown up hearing — such as that they should always be ready to have sex, that they should get aroused at the drop of a hat, and that they should be able to perform perfectly every time. Continued here