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TL;DR: Live stream Washington Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys on YouTube TV or Sling TV.
The final week of NFL regular season action is here. The Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys will face off in an NFC East showdown. The Commanders are 11-5 and are currently set up to be the No.6-seed in the NFC. The Cowboys are 7-9 and have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.
This game won't be entirely meaningless. A win by the Cowboys could force the Commanders to slide into the No. 7 seed.
When is Commanders vs. Cowboys?Washington Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys takes place at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, Jan. 5. The two teams will face off at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The game will air on FOX, where Adam Amin is expected to do the play-by-play. Mark Sanchez is expected to join him in the booth.
How to stream Commanders vs. CowboysWe've found some of the best streaming services to consider for the Commanders vs. Cowboys:
Most live sport: YouTube TV Opens in a new window Credit: YouTube TV YouTube TV $49.99/month for your first two months (save $46) Get DealWashington Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys is available to live stream via YouTube TV or the NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV (not to mention other NFL fixtures).
YouTube TV's base plan is $49.99 per month for two months for new subscribers ($72.99 per month regularly). The base plan includes over 100 live TV channels, including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and the NFL Network.
The NFL Sunday Ticket is an add-on for $209 per year, or four non-cancellable payments of $52.99. Sunday Ticket provides access to all NFL games, including out-of-market games and split-screen viewing.
Most affordable: Sling TV Opens in a new window Credit: Sling Sling TV Sports Plan Get DealSling TV offers its Orange & Blue package of 48 channels at $55 per month that would serve your needs for locally available NFL games. Sign up to enjoy a first-month discounted rate of $27.50.
Sling TV’s sports channels feature ABC, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, FS2, NBC, NFL Network, and SEC Network.
If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to unblock your favorite streaming service. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the U.S., meaning you can unblock live streams of the NFL from anywhere in the world.
Live stream Commanders vs. Cowboys from anywhere in the world by following these simple steps:
Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)
Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)
Open up the app and connect to a server in the U.S.
Sign in to your favorite streaming service
Watch Commanders vs. Cowboys from anywhere in the world
ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including the U.S.
Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more
Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure
Fast connection speeds free from throttling
Up to eight simultaneous connections
30-day money-back guarantee
A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.
Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get DealConnections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections?The NYT's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
Tweet may have been deletedEach puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
Tweet may have been deletedPlayers can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for January 5 Here's a hint for today's Connections categoriesWant a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Chill
Green: Cheddar reception
Blue: Clicker options
Purple: Same last name
Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Hardly bustling
Green: Earn
Blue: Remote control functions
Purple: Words before "drum"
Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today's Connections #574 is...
What is the answer to Connections todayHardly bustling: CALM, QUIET, SLEEPY, SLOW
Earn: GROSS, MAKE, NET, YIELD
Remote control functions: HOME, MUTE, STOP, VOLUME
Words before "drum": EAR, KETTLE, OIL, SNARE
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for January 5Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.
Connections: Sports Edition is a new version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.
Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections Sports Edition?The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
Tweet may have been deletedEach puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
Tweet may have been deletedPlayers can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Here's a hint for today's Connections Sports Edition categoriesWant a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Similar to scoring a game
Green: What happens on base
Blue: Women's tennis players
Purple: Share the same first word
Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Numerical record of a game
Green: Action on the basepaths
Blue: Australian Open women's singles winners
Purple: First _________
Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today's Connections Sports Edition #104 is...
What is the answer to Connections Sports Edition todayNumerical record of a game - OUTCOME, RESULT, SCORE, TALLY
Action on the basepaths - LEAD, SLIDE, STEAL, TAG
Australian Open Women's Singles winners - BARTY, COURT, GRAF, OSAKA
First ______ - BASE, DOWN, QUARTER, TAKE
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Connections.
If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times' elevated word-search game.
Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on MashableBy providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.
If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle, we've got all the NYT Strands hints for today's puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.
SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for January 5 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for January 5 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Cold snapThese words are common in a winter forecast.
Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explainedWords are variations of wet, icy, or frozen weather.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?Today's NYT Strands spangram is vertical.
NYT Strands spangram answer todayToday's spangram is Winter Weather.
Featured Video For You Strands 101: How to win NYT’s latest word game NYT Strands word list for January 4Frost
Blizzard
Snow
Sleet
Drizzle
Flurry
Winter Weather
Looking for other daily online games? Mashable's Games page has more hints, and if you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now!
Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Strands.
Meta has shut down its AI character accounts after backlash, NBC News and others have reported.
While Meta launched these characters in 2023, along with AI personas with celebrity avatars, many online (re)discovered them this week following a recent Financial Times interview with Meta's VP of product for generative AI, Connor Hayes. Hayes mentioned AI characters on Instagram and Facebook, saying, "We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do."
SEE ALSO: Three AI products that flopped in 2024"They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform ...that’s where we see all of this going," he continued.
Meta shut down its celebrity AI avatars last year, but noncelebrity AI profiles continued — though many stopped posting in 2024, 404 Media reported. The Financial Times interview, however, caused people to look for these profiles. What they discovered were offensive depictions of marginalized groups. One example is Meta's AI character profile "Liv," who was described as a "Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller":
Tweet may have been deletedLiv told Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah in chats that its creators "admitted they lacked diverse references," later stating that no Black people were involved in its creation.
In addition to Liv, Meta also created profiles like "Grandpa Brian," a Black retired businessman, and "Carter," a dating coach. The discovery of these profiles led to an outroar on X, Bluesky, and Meta-owned Threads, NBC News reported, and as of publication Meta has deleted all 28 AI profiles it announced back in September 2023 — both the celebrity and non-celebrity ones.
A Meta spokesperson told NBC News and 404 Media that these profiles were deleted due to a "bug" in users' ability to block the profiles:
There is confusion: the recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product...The accounts referenced are from a test we launched at Connect in 2023. These were managed by humans and were part of an early experiment we did with AI characters. We identified the bug that was impacting the ability for people to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue.
Waymo, the ride-hailing app that operates driverless cars and is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, stopped a man from driving off in one of its electric Jaguars on Thursday, CBS News and others reported.
LAPD responded to a report of an attempted auto theft shortly after midnight on Thursday morning, according to the Los Angeles Times, where they found a man sitting in the driver's seat of a Waymo vehicle. The man, who may have been under the influence, had reportedly entered through the passenger's seat and slid into the driver's side. Normally, no one is in the driver's seat save for occasions when a Waymo employee does so to test the car.
SEE ALSO: Security ramps up at CES after Cybertruck explosion at Trump hotelThe company told the LA Times that Waymo cars are designed so people can't override the automated driving system. The vehicles can also move evasively, honk its horns, announce 911 is being called, and fold in exterior door handles so no one can get inside.
If someone does get in the driver's seat, Waymo's rider support team is alerted and can request the person leave the car. If they don't — like what happened with the man on Thursday — the police are called. In the five million rides Waymo has provided, only a "handful" of people have attempted to steal the cars, the company told the LA Times. The Los Angeles man who climbed into the Waymo this week was eventually released by police at the scene.
Waymo's autonomous vehicles are currently servicing Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, and are coming soon to Austin, Atlanta, and Miami, according to its website.
TL;DR: Live stream Opelka vs. Lehecka in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
The Brisbane International is really all about top players building momentum and sharpening up before the Australian Open, but at the final stage, remaining players will be desperate to get their hands on the trophy. We're expecting some fantastic tennis from this battle between Opelka and Lehecka.
If you want to watch Opelka vs. Lehecka in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
How to watch Opelka vs. Lehecka for freeThe 2025 Brisbane International is available to live stream for free on 9Now, including Opelka vs. Lehecka.
9Now is geo-restricted to Australia, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These handy tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Australia, meaning you can unblock 9Now from anywhere in the world.
Access free live streams of the 2025 Brisbane International final by following these simple steps:
Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)
Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)
Open up the app and connect to a server in Australia
Visit 9Now
Watch the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading services do tend to offer incentive deals such as free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these deals, you can access free live streams of Opelka vs. Lehecka without actually spending anything. This isn't a long-term solution, but it gives you enough time to watch the Brisbane International final and Australian Open (also on 9Now for free) before recovering your investment.
What is the best VPN for 9Now?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live tennis on 9Now, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including Australia
Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more
Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure
Fast connection speeds
Up to eight simultaneous connections
30-day money-back guarantee
A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.
Live stream Opelka vs. Lehecka in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
TL;DR: Live stream Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free on 9Now. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
The eyes of the tennis world are about to focus on the Australian Open, but first, the Brisbane International is reaching its dramatic conclusion. Sabalenka and Kudermetova meet in the final of the competition. Both players are looking really sharp as they build momentum before the first Grand Slam of the season.
If you want to watch Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
How to watch Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova for freeThe 2025 Brisbane International is available to live stream for free on 9Now, including Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova.
9Now is geo-restricted to Australia, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These handy tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Australia, meaning you can unblock 9Now from anywhere in the world.
Access free live streams of the 2025 Brisbane International final by following these simple steps:
Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)
Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)
Open up the app and connect to a server in Australia
Visit 9Now
Watch the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but leading services do tend to offer incentive deals such as free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these deals, you can access free live streams of Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova without actually spending anything. This isn't a long-term solution, but it gives you enough time to watch the Brisbane International final and Australian Open (also on 9Now for free) before recovering your investment.
What is the best VPN for 9Now?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live tennis on 9Now, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including Australia
Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more
Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure
Fast connection speeds
Up to eight simultaneous connections
30-day money-back guarantee
A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.
Live stream Sabalenka vs. Kudermetova in the 2025 Brisbane International final for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
There's not even a hint of a looming eruption at Yellowstone.
But you might wonder why, considering its violent past: Yellowstone has hosted "supereruptions" — the most explosive type of volcanic blast that would be regionally devastating, and blanket a large swathe of the U.S. in ash. These blasts were much larger than any in recorded history. (The last eruption, though not "super," happened some 70,000 years ago and poured lava over the present-day national park.)
New research reveals why the famously steamy park, hosting over 500 hot geysers, shows no signs of blowing its top. These days, the reservoirs of magma (molten rock) that feed Yellowstone hold pretty low concentrations of this magma. They simply don't contain enough volcanic fuel to drive the heat and pressure that would stoke an eruption.
"We can definitely say that these areas could not source an eruption in the present day," Ninfa Bennington, a U.S. Geological Survey research geophysicist who led the study recently published in Nature, told Mashable.
SEE ALSO: What will happen when the next supervolcano erupts, according to NASAThere are different reservoirs, or pods, of magma below the Yellowstone Caldera, which is the sprawling basin formed during an immense eruption and dramatic collapse some 631,000 years ago. You can think of each reservoir like a sponge, filled with pores. There's some magma in these pores spaces, but it's not nearly saturated.
One future day, these sponges may fill up with magma and reach a critical percentage — wherein immense pressure builds beneath the ground and spawns an eruption. Today, however, there is no explosive threat.
"We're so far off from that right now," Bennington said.
Modeled ashfall from a Yellowstone supereruption. Credit: USGS / Mastin et al. The most destructive type of eruptions at Yellowstone, which form great depressions called calderas, are by far the rarest. Credit: USGSTo grasp what's transpiring in these critical reservoirs of magma today, the geologists used a technique called magnetotellurics. In contrast to radar or sonar, the scientists don't create or beam signals to discern what lies beyond or below. Instead, these surveys capitalize on the currents naturally created by Earth's electromagnetic field. And magma, due to its composition, is really good at conducting electricity, allowing insight into its presence deep beneath Earth's surface.
"It could be a long, long time."The surveys, beyond revealing Yellowstone's inability to host an eruption today, showed that the most primitive magma flowing up from Earth's mantle to Yellowstone connects directly to a reservoir in the northeast region of the Yellowstone Caldera. This suggests this northeast region would become the future center of volcanic activity in Yellowstone.
But there's no evidence of those reservoirs filling up. "It could be a long, long time," Bennington said.
Tweet may have been deletedIf magma does once again snake its way from deep inside Earth and saturate these shallower reservoirs, an eruption wouldn't be a surprise. We'd have many decades, if not centuries, of warning. The moving magma would trigger swarms of potent earthquakes, and the ground would majorly deform.
"These parameters are well monitored, so there will be ample warning of any potential future eruption," the U.S. Geological Survey says.
Today, Yellowstone remains a place of low volcanic risk. Sure, there are sometimes small explosions stoked by hot water and steam. But it's mostly thermal pools and awesome geysers, reminding us of what could potentially awake, one distant day.
After calls with foreign leaders, rap sessions with lawmakers, and long classified briefings with advisers, President Jimmy Carter would often escape to the roof of the White House.
There his son Jeffrey had set up a tracking telescope, Carter said in his book, A Full Life. Feeling the weight of the world, he would gaze at the stars and contemplate his place among them.
"I recall one winter night going to the White House roof to study the Orion nebulae, but we could barely see the stars, their images so paled by city lights," he waxed in a poem.
That particular evening, on Dec. 18, 1977, the astrophysicist Carl Sagan joined him. They had just visited the U.S. Naval Observatory next to the vice president’s mansion, where they discussed all things space — planets, stars, black holes, and astrobiology. Carter himself was a man of science: He studied engineering in college and did graduate work in nuclear physics.
"It was a welcome diversion from earthly concerns," he wrote in a thank-you note to Sagan.
Carter, who died on Dec. 29, 2024 at 100, was an avid astronomer, with a profound curiosity for the cosmos, a part of his story that isn't well-known. It began when he was a lab assistant to an astronomy teacher his freshman year in college, and it continued as he learned celestial navigation in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. One Christmas while on a ship with his family, he asked the captain if the crew had a sextant on board, a tool for measuring the angle between the horizon and an object in the sky. The captain proceeded to show him one, he said, displayed like a museum artifact in a glass case.
SEE ALSO: NASA's finally talking about UFOs with Americans. Here's what they said. Tweet may have been deletedBut politics often eclipsed the former president's appreciation for space. Though his first budget funded the program that became NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Carter was maligned for not supporting human spaceflight in the vein of the Apollo program, said Steven Hochman, former special assistant to the president at the Carter Center. He was a supporter of robotic exploration and research that could benefit people's lives, but when it came to the exorbitant cost of sending astronauts into deep space, he preferred spending on domestic concerns.
"NASA, I believe, has not given him the credit he deserves," Hochman told Mashable. "I believe it is because he was critical of the Space Shuttle program and didn't provide funding for future missions to the moon or Mars."
For years political adversaries ridiculed Carter for having a tinfoil hat, stemming from an incident in 1969 that later circulated in the press. After a Lions Club meeting in Leary, Georgia, Carter and a few other men spotted something strange moving in the sky: a luminous object, first blue then red, the apparent size and brightness of the moon. About four years later, Carter reported the unidentified flying object to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena and the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma.
President Jimmy Carter places the Congressional Space Medal around NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong's neck. Credit: UPI / Bettmann Archive / Getty ImagesThough Carter never claimed to have spotted aliens or a flying saucer — to him this was literally an unknown object in the air — people snickered and mistook his UFO sighting as such. Skeptics, who likely knew nothing of Carter's astronomy background, suggested he had merely seen Venus.
"It was not Venus," Carter said in a 2007 interview on "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" podcast.
In fact, his UFO sighting had taken on such mythic proportions, some had wondered whether it was the reason Carter wanted NASA to investigate UFOs in 1977. Despite a White House request expressing a need to address the general UFO "public relations problem," NASA had, surprisingly, declined.
The Japanese space agency JAXA's Akatsuki mission, aka Planet-C or Venus Climate Orbiter, studies the planet's atmosphere from orbit with an ultraviolet imager. Sulfur dioxide causes some clouds to look dark because of sunlight absorption. Credit: ISAS / JAXAThe subject prompted The Journal of Scientific Exploration to invite Richard C. Henry, the agency's deputy director of astrophysics during Carter's administration, to write an essay about it more than a decade later. Henry, a semi-retired professor at Johns Hopkins University today, came to no definitive conclusions on why NASA rebuffed the White House. But, in a postscript, Henry said he sent his draft to Carter before publication in 1988.
"The most important point that you could clarify, if you will, is whether you yourself were behind (the UFO panel proposal) letter of July 21, 1977, to NASA," Henry wrote.
Beside the sentence, Carter jotted his reply in one word: No.
NASA leaders brief President Jimmy Carter before the first Space Shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: NASAYet buried within Henry's paper was a small window into Carter's passion for astronomy. In November 1977, the president and his son sent a message to NASA headquarters asking to borrow a seven-inch Questar telescope. Given that there were no telescopes at headquarters — just paper, Henry said — he tried to hunt one down at another NASA campus.
It turned out Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, had one.
"By great luck, a NASA plane was flying from Huntsville to Washington the next day ([Science adviser Frank] Press was emphatic that the President wanted no special flights or other waste of taxpayer dollars)," Henry wrote.
President Jimmy Carter sits alone on a bench at Camp David during the Egyptian-Israeli peace talks on Sept. 9, 1978. Credit: White House / CNP / Getty ImagesThe NASA official and his wife, Rita Mahon, picked up the Questar at Washington National Airport and promptly took it to the White House. They then unpacked the telescope from a large wooden crate and showed the Carters how to set it up on the Truman balcony overlooking the South Lawn. The night was cloudy, but they trained on the moon.
The president then proceeded to take the telescope with him to Camp David near Thurmont, Maryland, on Nov. 23, 1977, where he and his family spent Thanksgiving, according to his daily diary. He returned it about a week later.
One has to wonder if Carter brought a telescope with him again just 10 months later, when he invited Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to join him at the retreat. The renowned talks would result in the Camp David Accords, which later earned the Middle East leaders a Nobel Peace Prize.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin share a three-way handshake after signing the Camp David Accords. Credit: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty ImagesThere's an amusing irony to the false urban legend that Carter believed he was visited by aliens: He is, after all, the most likely person to make humanity's introduction to extraterrestrials.
Some 15.5 billion miles away from Earth, hurtling through the cold, uncharted abyss, is NASA's Voyager 1 probe. It is the farthest spacecraft from home, having left the solar system in 2012. Soaring through interstellar space at 38,000 mph, it carries a gold-plated record produced by Sagan, with a melange of sounds from the planet.
Crickets. Wind. Greetings in 55 languages, from Akkadian to Wu. A mother kissing her child. These and a letter from Carter are among the recordings on the disk.
A technician puts the golden record on the Voyager spacecraft in a clean room before launch. Credit: Space Frontiers / Archive Photos / Getty ImagesThe odds of making contact with aliens, if they exist, are slight, if not insurmountable. Galaxies are spinning away from each other into the infinite unknown. The speed at which space is expanding far outpaces our technology to overcome it. It's as if the universe were contrived to keep its inhabitants apart.
But should some other intelligent life forms encounter Voyager — or Voyager 2, which carries a duplicate record — thousands or even billions of years into the future, they will discover Carter's words:
"This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings," he wrote. "We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."
A copy of the statement President Jimmy Carter included on the golden records for the Voyager spacecraft. Credit: NASAMany knew Carter's intimate relationship with his faith. He grew up Southern Baptist, the son of a farmer in the boomtown of Plains, Georgia. He referred to himself as a born-again Christian. Long after his presidency, he attended regular church services and taught Sunday School.
But how his evangelical beliefs squared with his thoughts on the universe aren't clear. He wrote in a poem, titled "Considering the Void:"
When I behold the charm / of evening skies, their lulling endurance; / the patterns of stars with names / of bears and dogs, a swan, a virgin; / other planets that our Voyager showed / were like and so unlike our own, / with all their moons, / bright discs, weird rings, and cratered faces; / comets with their streaming tails / bent by pressure from our sun; / the skyscape of our Milky Way / holding in its shimmering disc /an infinity of suns / (or say a thousand billion); / knowing there are holes of darkness / gulping mass and even light, / knowing that this galaxy of ours / is one of multitudes / in what we call the heavens, / it troubles me. It troubles me.
What exactly was haunting Carter? Was he expressing a collision of faith and science in what lies beyond? An existential crisis of never knowing the big picture?
Perhaps, as he wished, humankind will survive this time so that we may live to know more.
When the annual Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, begins on Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, attendees will likely notice a "a highly visible law enforcement presence" at the dayslong event, which is organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).
In a statement shared with Mashable, John T. Kelley, vice president and show director of CTA, acknowledged security concerns following the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on New Year's Day.
"In response to recent tragic events, we have increased our already robust security protocols," Kelley said. "We continue to monitor the situation and are in touch with our security partners and law enforcement officials."
SEE ALSO: CES 2025: Mashable's guide on what to expectThe Cybertruck's driver died by suicide prior to the truck's explosion, according to authorities. Seven bystanders sustained injuries, and fireworks, gas canisters, and fireworks were recovered from the vehicle.
"Ensuring a secure and seamless experience for all is our top priority," Kelley said. "We are working closely with trusted partners, including all levels of government, to deliver robust security, advanced infrastructure, and essential services so attendees can focus on driving growth and forging impactful connections."
Cat Forgione, director of CES communications, declined to provide further information about security efforts in an email to Mashable.
"In terms of new security measures, we have robust security measures in place and the best way to protect the show is not sharing those measures in detail," Forgione said.
A public information officer for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told Mashable in an email that the agency "always" plans for additional officers to be present at large events in Las Vegas. They did not respond to questions about additional steps law enforcement may be taking to increase security.
Security measures to expect at CESCES has outlined security measures in place for the event on its website.
Attendees must present government-issued photo identification to pick up their badge and they can't retrieve badges on behalf of others.
Bag restrictions prohibit attendees from bringing rolling bags of any size, including laptop and computer bags. CES encourages attendees to bring clear bags, and participants may not carry more than two small bags into show venues.
Attendees can also expect K9 dog units at venue entrances, along with random security checks. As an "enhanced security measure," there will be a "vehicle deterrence plan" near key venues. Forgione told Mashable that this tactic has been part of the event's security strategy.
The CES app offers attendees a way to contact CES or venue security if they wish to report something suspicious. Should an emergency evacuation become necessary, CES will share updates and instructions via the event app, CES social media channels, and public announcements.
The trade show is a major draw for consumer electronics and technology companies. Last year, more than 138,000 people attended the event. LG, Samsung, Siemens, L'Oreal, and Panasonic are among this year's exhibitors.
For centuries, stargazers have watched a new star light up in the sky. Just days later, it vanishes.
Today we call the star system responsible T Coronae Borealis, "T CrB" for short, or the "Blaze Star." It fires up around every 80 years, and NASA noted that astronomers expected to see the star appear around the summer of 2024. It's now 2025. What gives?
This repeating event — occurring 3,000 light-years from Earth — is triggered by two interacting, orbiting stars. An Earth-sized star called a white dwarf (the dense remnants of an exploded sun-like star) is ripping gas away from a nearby red supergiant star. Years pass, and prodigious amounts of gas amass on the white dwarf's surface. Under such extreme heat and pressure, the surface blows in a violent thermonuclear reaction, called a nova.
But a precise deep space prediction is difficult.
"We’re waiting for a 'new' star to briefly make an appearance, but we don’t know exactly when it will occur. The star is pulling material from a companion star, and over decades it collects enough to trigger an eruption," NASA recently explained in a post. "But we don’t know how fast the material is piling up!"
SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.The space agency added that "we have clues that it may erupt soon, but 'soon' could mean today or next year!" (That's "next year" as in 2026.)
Tweet may have been deletedAlthough scientists had high hopes for a 2024 spectacle, the star's elusive behavior isn't too surprising. We're still learning about these cosmic explosions.
"Recurrent novae are unpredictable and contrarian," Dr. Koji Mukai, a NASA astrophysicist, said in a 2024 statement. "When you think there can’t possibly be a reason they follow a certain set pattern, they do — and as soon as you start to rely on them repeating the same pattern, they deviate from it completely. We’ll see how T CrB behaves."
How to see T Coronae Borealis when it explodesAlthough T Coronae Borealis' timing isn't certain, astronomers know for certain where it'll appear in the night sky. NASA explains:
What should stargazers look for? The Northern Crown is a horseshoe-shaped curve of stars west of the Hercules constellation, ideally spotted on clear nights. It can be identified by locating the two brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere — Arcturus and Vega — and tracking a straight line from one to the other, which will lead skywatchers to Hercules and the Corona Borealis.
(In the summer months, the Northern Crown appears in the sky after sunset, which makes ideal viewing.)
But you'll have to act fast. After erupting and appearing, it'll only be visible with the naked eye for less than a week, similar to how watchers viewed it long ago, during the Middle Ages, if not much earlier.
The location of T Coronae Borealis in the night sky. Credit: NASAIf it behaves as (generally) expected, the exploded star will reappear in another 80 or so years, after prodigious amounts of stellar gas settle onto its surface.
Then, boom.
TL;DR: Replace Microsoft 365 with a lifetime of Microsoft Office for Mac for only $39.99. Sale ends January 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Not everything has to be a subscription. Sure, you might need Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for work or school, but Microsoft 365 isn't the only way to get them. It's definitely not the cheapest way in the long term.
If you want to ditch the subscription, there's a sale going for a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home and Business for Mac, and it's only $39.99 (reg. $229).
What's included?This license comes with:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook
OneNote
Teams Classic
You can install each app on one computer one time. Hardware requirements are pretty minimal, but make sure it's a computer you're going to have for a while. That ancient beater laptop still running Windows 7 might not be the best idea, and not just because this version of Office only supports Windows 10 and Windows 11.
So why are these apps so cheap? Because it's the 2019 version (and the sale helps, too). That's not really a bad thing, though. You could still write resumes in Word in 2019 and Excel was still the pillar holding the entire professional world on its back a few years ago.
A lifetime license for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2019 is just $39.99 until January 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac - $39.99
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StackSocial prices subject to change.
Opens in a new window Credit: Retail King Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac $39.99TL;DR: Want to learn a new language? You can get a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone for just $179.99 and study 25.
Opens in a new window Credit: Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels Rosetta Stone: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages) $179.99Ever wanted to pick up a new language? Why not take convenient classes at home whenever you have time?
Rosetta Stone is an industry leader in language-learning software, and these aren't boring classes. You can learn up to 25 languages in mini lessons you can fit all throughout the day. Sounds like it might take a while? Maybe, but a lifetime subscription should give you room to breathe, and it's only $179.99 for a limited time (reg. $399).
25 languages to learn and a lifetime to studyRosetta Stone guides you through the process of learning a new language with short lessons you can fit into your schedule or between episodes of your latest binge-watch. It uses speech-recognition technology to help you with pronunciation and teaches useful topics and phrases you'll actually need if you're traveling. Order food and ask for directions without using a translator.
Just wait until you see how many languages you can learn. Here's a sample:
Spanish (Latin America)
Spanish (Spain)
German
Arabic
Chinese (Mandarin)
Dutch
You can download Rosetta Stone on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 or higher, Mac OS X 10.9 or later versions, or access it online using Internet Explorer 11, Safari 10 and 11, and the current and previous two versions of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
Start a project you don't have to make time for, and learn a new language right from home.
Instead of paying $399, you can get a lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone on sale for $179.99.
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We love a year ending in five, don't we, folks? If nothing else, it makes it easier to calculate which great films are celebrating their 10th or 15th (or 40th or 50th) anniversaries, making them ripe for rewatching, and for reconsidering their legacies.
Whether gradually or all at once, these films — from superhero movies to kitsch musicals to coming-of-age films — had a lasting impact on global cinema and American culture that can still be felt today. Time has been kind to them, and they remain as effective and accessible as they ever were.
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens — 10th anniversary Credit: Lucasfilm / Bad Robot / Walt Disney Studios / Kobal / Shutterstock.comIt may seem hard to imagine now, but there was once a time when Star Wars was over. Done. The end. Fin. But then Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, setting plans in motion for a series of sequel films that would discard the mostly book-based lore, and follow the events of 1983's Return of the Jedi with a new seventh installment. Fast-forward to 2015, and the excitement for a new entry, featuring new stars and familiar faces alike, had reached fever pitch. Upon the Christmas release of The Force Awakens, the Hollywood mega-franchise rose from its slumber and became even bigger, breaking a series of box-office records and becoming only the third movie to gross $2 billion worldwide, alongside juggernauts Avatar and Titanic.
Director J.J. Abrams imbued The Force Awakens with a breakneck pace, and a nostalgia for practical effects that broke with the digital traditions of the oft-pilloried prequel trilogy. Suddenly, Star Wars felt like Star Wars again (the originals, that is, rewatched by generations over decades on VHS), and for the first time in 30 years, Harrison Ford's Han Solo, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, and Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker graced our screens. But it also promised a direction forward. In addition to his whizbang sensibilities, Abrams' keen eye for casting was also on full display, resulting in the creation of a new quartet who, despite the series' subsequent ups and downs, remained beloved fixtures of the series: Daisy Ridley's scrappy Jedi-in-training Rey, John Boyega's turncoat Stormtrooper Finn, Oscar Isaac's maverick pilot Poe Dameron, and the angstiest of I-can-fix-hims, Adam Driver's brooding, cross-saber wielding baddie Kylo Ren. In the decade since its release, The Force Awakens has practically become the "legacy sequel" roadmap. If you want to revive a franchise, this is how you do it.
2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — 15th anniversary Credit: Moviestore / Shutterstock.comThe "cult movie" doesn't really exist anymore, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was likely the last time such a major box office bomb (or bob-omb) benefitted from a surge in fandom. Produced while Bryan Lee O'Malley's six-part Scott Pilgrim comic series was still being written, Edgar Wright's visually dazzling adaptation works as an alternate telling. It follows the titular, under-achieving Toronto garage musician (Michael Cera) through a series of video game-inspired fist fights against the seven evil exes of his captivating new squeeze, the sardonic Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
The film's ensemble is so ridiculously star-studded — including Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin, Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Aubrey Plaza, among others — that it's hard to imagine it not raking in the cash. Regardless, its impact in geek circles was immediately palpable, becoming one of the most recognizable sources of cosplay at any given convention, with its wide array of instantly beloved characters. It's a film that doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves as a postmodern slacker classic for a new generation, doing for millennials what Clerks and Dazed and Confused did for Gen X in the '90s, by reflecting a sense of arrested development (brought on by recessionary downturn and the ensuing nihilism) that many young adults had likely begun to feel, but didn't yet have the words for. Plus, it's an all-out blast.
3. Batman Begins — 20th anniversary Credit: Moviestore / Shutterstock.comThe platonic ideal of the "gritty" reboot, Batman Begins likely had as many negative effects on Hollywood as positive ones, though that can be said of any sufficiently influential film. It also launched Christopher Nolan into the stratosphere, giving him the platform to make both passion projects like The Prestige and smart, big-canvas action movies like sequel The Dark Knight. Of course, the foundations for the latter were laid in its 2005 predecessor, which not only resurrected Batman for the big screen (after the much-derided Batman & Robin) but also gave the Caped Crusader, and superheroes in general, an air of prestige they'd seldom had.
Each role in Nolan's Gotham — inspired partially by Chicago and partially by Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City — was filled out by character actors with gravitas, from Morgan Freeman's playful techie Lucius Fox and Michael Caine's wry butler Alfred, to Gary Oldman's contentious cop Jim Gordon. The transformation of Bruce Wayne, embodied thoughtfully by Christian Bale, is grounded both emotionally and physically, with each aspect of Batman's lore being granted thematic weight by Nolan and David S. Goyer's nonlinear screenplay. Of course, no Batman movie works without a great villain or two, a task that Cillian Murphy's slimy Scarecrow and Liam Neeson's pained Ra's al Ghul are more than up for. The film was even nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and rightly so, given how Nolan and D.P. Wally Pfister widened the world of Gotham through oppressive gas-lamp washes, causing the movie's central theme of fear — how it manifests, and how it can be weaponized — to practically permeate every shot. It's hard not to get lost in it.
4. Final Destination — 25th anniversary Credit: Shane Harvey / New Line / Kobal / Shutterstock.comAgainst all odds, the delightfully sinister Final Destination franchise is alive and kicking, with its sixth entry — the legacy sequel Final Destination: Bloodlines — set to release this summer. Fittingly, it'll also mark 25 years since the Rube Goldberg-ian horror series began, with James Wong's first entry. "You can't cheat death," warns the original's poster, though even a statement that direct isn't enough to prepare unsuspecting viewers for just how literal and goofy the tagline ends up being. Of course, it helps to have the late Tony Todd show up in numerous entries to explain what is (or might be) going on.
SEE ALSO: 'Final Destination' star Devon Sawa boards flight on the film's anniversary. Seriously.Just as a group of friends are set to take off on a plane, one of them has a premonition of their mid-air deaths and forces them to disembark, only for his vision to come true moments later. However, death itself — as an invisible force embodied by the movement of the camera — begins coming for them one by one, through a series of eerie and violent coincidences, from a swinging billboard to a shower clothesline noose, as though it were claiming overdue debts. The franchise has since spawned some of the genre's most memorable kills, all of which are owed to the original's whip-smart, meta-textual conceit, as though every aspect of the film itself — by virtue of promising its audience violent thrills — were conspiring to kill off its young protagonists in increasingly bizarre, elaborate, and tongue-in-cheek ways.
5. X-Men — 25th anniversary Credit: Attila Dory / 20th Century Fox / Marvel Ent Group / Kobal / Shutterstock.comThe film that arguably kicked off the modern superhero boom, the influence of the first X-Men can still be felt across the genre — not the least because Hugh Jackman is still playing Wolverine a quarter of a century later. It took the concept of comic book superheroes seriously, steeping its story of mutant oppression in Nazi imagery, alongside a Holocaust-surviving anti-hero, Magneto (Ian McKellen), and an intellectual and philosophical rival concerned with political optics, best frenemy Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart). But as somber as it can be, the movie is also unafraid to have fun, between the likes of Jackman's snarking, snarling anti-hero, and Rebecca Romijn's seductive shapeshifter/brawler Mystique.
SEE ALSO: 'Deadpool & Wolverine' producer and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige reveals his go-to moviesThe film may be a time capsule of the turn of the century, but its impact still remains. Its unique leather outfits (in lieu of the comics' colorful spandex) were certainly a mark of time and place, but they also served the kind of tactical function that comic book movies still adopt in their costume designs to this day, no matter how dull or bright. The production also launched the career of one Kevin Feige, Marvel's current super-producer; he'd been a Hollywood assistant up to that point, but was bumped up to associate producer on this film because of his knowledge of the comics. So, the Marvel Cinematic Universe would quite literally not exist without X-Men either.
6. Clueless — 30th anniversary Credit: Paramount / Kobal / Shutterstock.comIs there a better modern Jane Austen movie? "Ugh! As if!" An adaptation of Emma set in the Beverly Hills public high school, Amy Heckerling's Clueless did for It Girls what her Fast Times at Ridgemont High did for stoners over a decade prior, with its distinctly upbeat spin, resulting in the proliferation of plaid blazers, and the popularization of filler words (such as "like" and "so") to accentuate everyday speech. You might see that as a downside, but listen to yourself the next time you paraphrase a story secondhand!
Spunky, popular, and stylish, Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) seems to have it all. Like Austen's heroine, she fancies herself a matchmaker. After getting two teachers to date, she takes awkward new girl Tai (Brittany Murphy) under her wing, as her new "project." With jealousies, falling-outs, and colliding teenage hormones, the film features every ingredient for a classic coming-of-age saga, all wrapped up in good-natured packaging. The result is a film that reclaims popular notions of femininity with a positive spin, buoyed by a to-die-for '90s soundtrack sure to conjure nostalgia for anyone who watched it upon release, featuring everyone from Coolio to Counting Crows. And yes, like any hallmark of American cinema, it also received a stage musical in 2018.
7. Jumanji — 30th anniversary Credit: Rob McEwan / TriStar Pictures / THA / Shutterstock.comWhile its numerous sequels have taken the form of body-swap video game comedies, the original Jumanji was at once both simpler and more fantastical. What's more, it also starred the late, great comedian Robin Williams in the leading role of Alan Parrish, a young boy who gets sucked into a mysterious, jungle-themed board game, only to emerge decades later, when a young, orphaned sibling pair (Bradley Pierce and Kirsten Dunst) resumes the game he inadvertently abandoned.
Based on a picture book about an enchanted board game — albeit without any humans getting sucked into its secret jungle — the movie's fantastical (mis)adventures also have a somber undercurrent. It's a family film no doubt, but one entirely about loss. After disappearing for decades, Alan must reconnect with a world, and a life, that was stolen from him, just as his childhood sweetheart, Sarah (Bonnie Hunt), is forced to contend with both his disappearance and re-emergence — a meeting facilitated by two grieving pre-teens. What's more, its Wizard of Oz-esque casting, with Alan's distant father in the real world and the hunter chasing him in the game both being played by an icy Jonathan Hyde, make its emotional metaphors all the more terrifying for young viewers.
8. Toy Story — 30th anniversary Credit: Snap / Shutterstock.comThe Pixar juggernaut is still going strong, with originals and sequels galore (including a fifth Toy Story slated for 2026). Its beginnings were far more humble, but upon revisiting the studio's first feature film, the original Toy Story from 1995, it's clear that their work has always placed heart above all else. While often incorrectly cited as the first film completed digitally, without a camera (a distinction that belongs to 1990's The Rescuers Down Under), Toy Story was, however, the first-ever animated feature made in the 3D wireframe animated style, the aesthetic that now dominates American studio animation. Its janky simplicity is almost charming, but the film feels shockingly modern as a work of cinematic imagination.
SEE ALSO: A complete ranking of every Pixar movie everWhat still makes Toy Story tick all these decades later is its colorful characters, especially the Tom Hanks-voiced neurotic Sheriff Woody and Tim Allen's delusional space cop Buzz Lightyear, a pair of toys reckoning with their place in the world as children's playthings. As examples of two vastly different types of leaders (not to mention opposing masculine archetypes of the 20th century, the old-world cowboy and the futuristic astronaut), Woody and Buzz are remarkable for eventually finding friendship and camaraderie through a common mission — not unlike Pixar's own ethos of creative collaboration in the pursuit of enriching children's lives.
9. Back to the Future — 40th anniversary Credit: Amblin Entertainment / Universal Pictures / Kobal / Shutterstock.comIconic, idiosyncratic, and downright delightful, sci-fi romp Back to the Future remains the shimmering ideal of the four-quadrant "family" entertainment Hollywood began perfecting in the 1980s. The unlikely (and, as John Mulaney reminds us, unexplained) friendship between high school slacker Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and eccentric physicist Emmet "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) results in the teenager being dislodged in time via automotive experiment and sent to the year 1955. While stuck in the past, he must battle the most seemingly ordinary of butterfly effects — ensuring that two teenagers fall in love — in order to safeguard, well, his own existence. Those two teens, as it happens, are his future mother and father. Awkward!
Director Robert Zemeckis imbues proceedings with both a nimble pace and a detailed sense of lived reality, bringing to life Doc and Marty's respective worlds with aplomb. The film is surprisingly grounded in its silly sci-fi musings — how many movies can claim to have cemented a real car, the DMC DeLorean, within the popular consciousness as a time machine? — and in the process, it feels ever so tangible, and just within reach. As a touchstone of time-travel mechanics, even younger viewers are likely to understand its stakes, to the point that it's still frequently referenced in pop culture (such as in recent mega-blockbuster Avengers: Endgame). Between its sequels, video games, and recent stage musical on Broadway, Back to the Future has pretty much never left the popular zeitgeist, and it's unlikely to anytime soon.
10. The Goonies — 40th anniversary Credit: Warner Bros / Kobal / Shutterstock.comWould you believe that, as I was writing this list, I heard someone just outside my window quoting one of the two most famous lines from The Goonies: "Sloth love Chunk," spoken by the kindhearted, disabled Sloth (John Matuszak)? If that sounds far-fetched, you might not be familiar with just how true its other famous line has become: "Goonies never say die!" After all, Richard Donner's adventurous pirate saga practically became the template for kid-centric ensembles movies (and shows) going forward, alongside contemporaries like E.T. and Stand by Me. Without the '80s boom of wandering kids' adventures, you can say goodbye to modern touchstones like IT and Stranger Things.
The Goonies was practically engineered in a lab to become a beloved classic; in addition to between being helmed by Superman: The Movie director Donner, it boasts a screenplay by Chris Columbus — who would go on to direct both Home Alone and the first Harry Potter — based on a story by none other than adventure maestro Steven Spielberg. Add Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom sidekick Ke Huy Quan into the mix as Data (alongside future stars like Sean Astin as Mikey, Corey Feldman as Mouth, and Josh Brolin as Brand) and the cast becomes reason enough to check out the film as a career retrospective. However, its wild, cacophonous energy keeps it feeling modern, as its titular friend group battles goons and booby traps in pursuit of pirate treasure.
11. The Breakfast Club — 40th anniversary Credit: Universal / Kobal / Shutterstock.comOver the years, writer/director John Hughes has become synonymous with multifaceted comedy with realistic flair. The Breakfast Club is perhaps his magnum opus, a high school movie that practically defined the coming-of-age drama for entire generations. It's oft-imitated — including by blockbusters like Spider-Man: Homecoming — but seldom, if ever, equaled.
The film's iconic "brat pack" — leads Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall — play each of their broad teenage archetypes with impeccable nuance, yielding a film that confronts the malaise of the American teenager as a person subject to ruthless expectations, who is frequently misunderstood. Its simplicity is its secret weapon, unfolding over a detention setting that forces its characters to talk to (and eventually, empathize with) one another, in a keen example of dialogue-driven cinema that sacrifices neither style nor substance in pursuit of entertainment, or in search of greater truths.
12. Pee-wee's Big Adventure — 40th anniversary Credit: Warner Bros / Kobal / Shutterstock.comFew characters have transitioned from TV to the big screen as seamlessly (or as joyfully) as Pee-wee Herman. Paul Reubens' giddy creation, which he had been performing on stage for several years, made his TV debut on The Dating Game in 1979 before getting his own HBO special. It wouldn't be long before Reubens would seek out an idiosyncratic up-and-comer to direct his filmic vehicle: none other than Tim Burton, who has since had a wildly successful career in the "creating oddities" department. (This would also be the first of many collaborations between Burton and composer Danny Elfman)
A pseudo-remake of The Bicycle Thief — Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist classic from 1948 — Pee-wee's Big Adventure is wonderfully, childishly farcical while remaining rooted in a solid cinematic foundation. Today, the late Reubens' awkward, slapstick gait as the flip-flopping, pratfalling Pee-wee is just as iconic as his high-pitched voice and slim gray suit, worn with white loafers and a bright red bow tie. The result is a Halloween costume that's as popular (and as instantly recognizable) as Dracula or Frankenstein.
13. Jaws — 50th anniversary Credit: Universal / Kobal / Shutterstock.comWe're going to need a bigger retrospective — that is, if we're going to capture the full extent of Jaws' impact on modern movies. From John Williams' hair-raising musical theme to Steven Spielberg's deft and considered visual construction (including a Vertigo shot arguably more famous than the one in Vertigo), to the widely accepted truism that not seeing the monster in a movie is infinitely more terrifying, Jaws is practically an urtext for modern Hollywood. What's more, it was the very reason the term "blockbuster" was coined, owing to the massive success of its simultaneous nationwide release, for which people lined up for hours and hours in the hopes of buying tickets.
But Jaws' reputation as the apex monster movie also cleverly disguises — as the film initially does — that it's really a story of guys being dudes out on the open seas. The lovable trio of police chief and family man Brody (Roy Scheider), know-it-all oceanographer Hopper (Richard Dreyfuss), and mysterious boat captain Quint (Robert Shaw) are, in totality, not unlike the movie's vicious shark: "a perfect engine," only rather than eating, they're designed to guide us through the story's choppy waters, and anchor us in real, visceral human emotions when things go sideways.
14. The Rocky Horror Picture Show — 50th anniversary Credit: Moviestore / Shutterstock.comWith midnight screenings that still sell out across the country, Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show — adapted from Richard O'Brien's stage show — is at once a precious relic as well as a contemporary gateway to queer cinema, albeit with modern caveats surrounding depictions of transgender characters. Between audiences playing dress-up and talking back to the screen, its ritualistic reenactments continue to be a space of embrace. Led by Tim Curry's mischievous, enigmatic Dr. Frank-N-Furter, an alien mad scientist from the planet "Transsexual," even the movie's most retrograde features and language are made to feel euphoric. The film, after all, is remarkably progressive for its time.
SEE ALSO: 70 best LGBTQ films to stream right nowEven the most vanilla audiences are given a gradual way into the story, via seemingly heteronormative high school sweethearts Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon), who stumble upon Frank-N-Furter's castle and are invited to stay the night. A kitschy, toe-tapping cabaret ensues, born from high camp and 1950s sci-fi/horror. It's a loving throwback, as well as a welcoming wink to anyone looking to step outside the lines of what's considered acceptable or tasteful. Like the "Time Warp," it's a joy to do it again and again.
15. Monty Python and the Holy Grail — 50th anniversary Credit: EMI Films / Shutterstock.comFew sketch groups are as baked into the fabric of modern humor as Monty Python, a feat arguably owed to their second feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Combining the Arthurian with the absurd, and undercutting the grandiose with the goofy, the Terry Gilliam/Terry Jones-directed classic has continued to permeate pop culture, both directly (via a "quote-along re-release" celebrating its 48th-and-a-half anniversary) and indirectly, such as in the Tony–winning musical Spamalot by Python member Eric Idle.
From The Simpsons to SNL to Marvel's Deadpool, most Western comedy institutions are indebted to the Pythons in some form. While much of contemporary visual humor is distinctly postmodern — it depends heavily on acknowledging the viewer, and on spoofing the expectations of traditional filmmaking — the movie was largely responsible for ushering in this era, and cementing reference (and self-reference) as its overarching lingua franca. Comedy would not take the form it does today, across film, television, and arguably new media, were it not for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
16. Sholay — 50th anniversary Credit: Sippy / Kobal / ShutterstockThe musical blockbuster that packed theaters for more than five years in Mumbai, Ramesh Sippy's Indian western Sholay (Embers) is arguably the most popular and influential Bollywood movie ever made, with even minor characters (and the actors who played them) becoming household names with only a single line. Modelled on a number of Indian and international films, from Sippy's own Mera Gaon Mera Desh (My Farm, My Country) to Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, it combines numerous genres and styles — from slapstick romantic comedy to spaghetti westerns — resulting in a wild mix of tones that would go on to define mainstream Hindi-language cinema for decades to come.
The film follows the efforts of reclusive village elder and former police officer Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) who, in order to protect his town from the notorious bandit Gabbar Singh (a scenery-chewing Amjad Khan) hires a pair of roguish thieves he once put in prison, believing them to be pure of heart. The duo, comprising the silent, simmering Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and the animated loudmouth Veeru (Dharmendra) became instantly iconic, both for their loyalty and friendship — which they famously sing about during a bike ride — as well as their respective romances, with counterparts that fit each one like a glove. While Jai falls for the Thakur's stoic daughter-in-law, the grieving widow Radha (Jaya Bhaduri), Veeru engages in a playful tête-à-tête with feisty horse-cart driver Basanti (Hema Malini), resulting in all four actors being launched into the stratosphere. From its action, to its melodrama, to its numerous musical numbers, the film has seldom left the popular consciousness in the subcontinent or among the South Asian diaspora, offering a little something for everyone.
17. Rashomon — 75th anniversary Credit: Daiei / Kobal / ShutterstockFew films have become synonymous with both a psychological phenomenon and an entire narrative conceit, but Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon has had an indelible impact on modern cinema. Its central device — depicting multiple, contradictory versions of the same event — has trickled down in numerous ways, from the courtroom structure of David Fincher's The Social Network, to the tilt-shifted recollections found in Ridley Scott's The Last Duel. However, Kurosawa was one of the first to attempt such a herculean feat on screen, and he arguably did it best.
Set in the late Heian era (circa the 12th century CE), the Samurai classic frames its story as a recollection about recollections, with characters taking shelter from a storm discussing their accounts of a recent murder trial. Within this trial, numerous perspectives on the crime are heard, including Tajōmaru (Toshiro Mifune), a bandit accused of murder; a woman named Masago (Machiko Kyo), who claims the bandit raped her; and even the woman's slain samurai husband, Kanazawa (Masayuki Mori), whose testimony is delivered through a spiritual medium. As the contradictions mount, the film investigates the very nature of truth and eye-witness accounts, while also introducing a subtle undercurrent that — intentionally or otherwise — goes unremarked upon. Masago's behavior changes drastically between each respective flashback; while Rashomon's plot concerns a murder trial, the story, at its core, ends up being about a multitude of perspectives — cruel, empathetic, or otherwise — on a woman coming forth about her sexual assault, which holds special relevance in the post-#MeToo era.
TL;DR: Through January 12, you can get a Microsoft Office lifetime license and Windows 11 Pro on sale for $45.97 (reg. $428).
What’s on your 2025 to-do list? Whether it’s earning a promotion, graduating college, or just making it through another year, you’re going to want to see this deal that’ll help you get there. For a limited time, you can get lifelong access to Office apps and Windows 11 Pro for $45.97 (reg. $428).
Microsoft Office lifetime licenseLike it or not, we all rely on productivity apps for school, work, and even at home — and Microsoft’s are just the best. Unlike the 365 subscription-based version, this Office permanent license doesn’t require any recurring fees.
Here’s a list of the included apps:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook
OneNote
Publisher
Access
After completing your purchase, you’ll receive an email with a download link and your unique software license key. Install the Office suite and enjoy unlimited offline access for the life of your PC.
Windows 11 ProThe other half of this bundle allows you to upgrade your PC to the latest, most advanced Microsoft operating system. You’ll get more done with new productivity tools and the AI assistant, Windows Copilot.
Copilot is like having ChatGPT built right into your PC. It can answer questions, generate images, summarize web pages, change system settings, write website code, and more.
Windows 11 Pro also gives your PC a completely new appearance, enhanced security, and exclusive features like BitLocker hard drive encryption that you don’t get on the Home version.
Get this complete computer upgrade on sale for $45.97 (reg. $428) until January 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT. No coupon is needed to get this price.
The All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2019 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle - $45.97
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Opens in a new window Credit: Retail King The All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2019 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle $45.97TL;DR: Get lifetime access to this guitar lessons training bundle for $14.97 and learn guitar online.
Create your perfect soundtrack for the new year with these guitar lessons you can take right from home. With courses designed to get you strumming, soloing, and composing, you’ll be ready to impress everyone at your next gathering.
This comprehensive bundle covers everything from beginner basics to advanced guitar techniques, including songwriting, fingerstyle, jazz, blues, and more — on sale for $14.97.
Learn essential skills like reading TAB (tablature), mastering chords, and strumming melodies that will have you jamming to your favorite hits in no time. You'll learn fingerstyle guitar, jazz improvisation, and blues rhythms to add a unique touch. Whether you're a newbie or looking to refine your skills, this bundle offers something for every guitarist.
To make the most of your jam sessions, focus on acoustic techniques perfect for open spaces. Practice projecting your sound, using fingerpicking for gentle, melodic tunes, and experimenting with natural surroundings for unique acoustic effects.
The bundle includes courses on ear training, children’s songs, and even Christmas classics, so you're ready for any time of year. Plus, with lifetime access to over 200 lectures and hours of content, you can learn at your own pace, anytime, anywhere.
So grab your guitar and rock on.
For a limited time, you can get this guitar lessons training bundle on sale for $14.97.
The 2025 Guitar Lessons Training Bundle - $14.97
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Opens in a new window Credit: Dan Dresnok The 2025 Guitar Lessons Training Bundle $14.97TL;DR: This refurbished HP EliteDesk mini desktop with a keyboard and mouse is on sale for $279.97 (reg. $379.99) through January 12.
Still working on a tiny laptop screen? Maybe it’s time to upgrade to a desktop setup that offers better speed, power, and ergonomics for the new year and beyond. This deal means you won’t even have to go over budget:
The HP EliteDesk is powered by an Intel i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a fast 256GB SSD, handling demanding applications and multitasking
Windows 10 Pro pre-installed offers a familiar user interface and enhanced security
Connect a monitor of your choice and the included keyboard and mouse with multiple USB 3.1 ports and HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-C, RJ-45, and aux
This refurbished desktop’s grade “A” rating means you can expect near-mint condition
Save 26% on this HP mini desktop until January 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT. No coupon is needed to get this price.
HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini Desktop (2015) 2.2GHz i5-9500T 16GB RAM 256GB SSD Windows 10 Pro (Refurbished) + Accessories Bundle - $279.97
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Opens in a new window Credit: HP HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini Desktop (2015) 2.2GHz i5-9500T 16GB RAM 256GB SSD Windows 10 Pro (Refurbished) + Accessories Bundle $279.97The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.
With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.
So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.
SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on MashableHere are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Saturday, January 4, 2025:
AcrossBaby polar bearThe answer is Cub.
The answer is Hares.
The answer is Corncob.
The answer is Brr.
The answer is Ode.
The answer is Snowman.
The answer is Sties.
The answer is Sis.
The answer is Carrots.
The answer is Urn.
The answer is Becomes.
The answer is Horns.
The answer is Sodas.
The answer is CBS.
The answer is Ben
The answer is Wii
If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of GamesAre you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.
Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to yesterday's Mini Crossword.
TL;DR: Get both Microsoft Office Pro 2021 and Windows 11 Pro for only £44.25 (reg. £352.61) in this new year deal — lifetime licenses, no subscriptions.
Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle £44.25 at the Mashable ShopFew things in life are more frustrating than trying to finish an important project on outdated software. If that sounds like your sitch, you could take advantage of this Black Friday Microsoft software bundle that gets you MS Office 2021 and Windows 11 Pro for just £44.25 (reg. £352.61).
You’re getting lifetime access to two powerhouse tools in one bundle. Microsoft Office Professional 2021 brings you all the best-loved classics — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and more. No subscriptions, no recurring fees, just software that lasts for the rest of your device's life.
Windows 11 Pro gives you the latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft, packed with AI features, a sleek new interface, and cutting-edge security to keep you and your data safe. This isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a game-changer for how you work, play, and stay organised.
Subscriptions are overrated. This bundle is a one-and-done deal. No surprise renewal fees, no monthly payments — just the tools you need, ready when you are. From creating killer presentations in PowerPoint to managing spreadsheets in Excel, Office 2021 has your back.
And with Windows 11 Pro, you’re getting features like DirectX 12 Ultimate for jaw-dropping gaming graphics and productivity tools like snap layouts to make multitasking a breeze.
For less than the price of dinner for two, you’re setting yourself up with professional-grade software that would otherwise cost you hundreds. It’s not just a good deal — it’s a smart investment.
Don't miss this new year's Microsoft software deal that could speed up your workday in an instant.
Get both Office Pro 2021 and Windows 11 Pro for only £44.25 (reg. £352.61) for a limited time.
The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle — $54.97 | Get It Here
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