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Teens and parents alike may consider themselves familiar with classic signs of online grooming. For victims, that includes withdrawing from friends and family, becoming secretive about online activity, and sharing explicit images of themselves.
But predators are so skilled at deceiving their victims that signs of online grooming can actually be subtle and hard to detect, says Lauren Coffren, executive director of the exploited children division at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
In fact, when grooming takes place over a period of time, the dynamic can look much like any other friendship in the beginning, filled with conversations about mutual interests.
But another type of grooming, known as financial sextortion, can happen within hours and minutes, which prevents victims and their parents from picking up on the traditional or obvious warning signs. In these cases, predators may pose as a peer and send nude or explicit pictures to their victim, which is not uncommon for teens.
"These bad actors are really good at what they do," Coffren says. "They figured out these tactics of how to trick kids."
SEE ALSO: Why teens are telling strangers their secrets online Signs of grooming you might miss1. The child is receiving a lot of compliments from a new friend.
Predators often earn a child's trust by complimenting them, says Coffren. They may have taken note of the child's interests or likes and dislikes, as indicated by their social media activity. Then they'll flatter the child by remarking on their good taste.
Compliments may also be based on the child's personality traits, such as their sense of humor or intelligence. Such remarks are designed to break down a child's defenses, and they may be particularly effective when a child already craves validation.
Parents might feel thrilled that their child is talking to someone online who appears to genuinely like them, but the new contact may have a predatory motive. It's important that parents have ongoing conversations with their child about the nature and frequency of online interactions that involve compliments and flattery.
2. The new friend is engaging your child's interests.
Predators can skillfully talk to children about their hobbies and passions, including gaming, music, sports, and pop culture, Coffren says. They build trust with a victim by being curious about and sharing those interests.
Again, this dynamic is something that parents typically embrace for their children when it involves trusted friends. But online, that new connection could be anyone, unless that person legitimately belongs to a child's broader in-person social circle.
If a child is excited by a new online relationship in which shared interests play a key role, parents should remain aware of how that continues to develop. While it could be an authentic peer-to-peer relationship that's fulfilling for both children, predators know how to make it hard for a child to know the difference between that and a bond based on deceit.
3. Their relationship looks like a friendship—with some differences.
Coffren says that traditional online grooming will often look like a typical friendship until the predator's behavior slowly starts to escalate. They might offer the victim gift cards, in-game currency, or other presents to appear generous and supportive. A young recipient will likely consider themselves lucky, not manipulated.
Escalation can also involve riskier chat topics, such as sexual interests. For a teen who wants to feel mature, or who is curious about their own sexuality, these conversations can feel like a step toward adulthood. Unfortunately, predators will ultimately take advantage of this.
Coffren says threats toward the child may follow soon after these exchanges. A predator will often threaten to share screenshots of the chats if the victim doesn't continue to talk to them, or if they refuse to share explicit imagery of themselves.
Coffren urges parents to regularly talk to their kids about what healthy relationships and boundaries look like so that they understand the potential implications of behaviors like gift-giving and riskier chats online. Parents should also discuss what a child can do if they're being targeted by a predator, which can include telling a trusted adult and blocking and reporting that account.
In general, she warns parents of the dangers related to children talking to any strangers online, given how swiftly exploitation can happen. To learn more about what online grooming looks like, and how to discuss it with children, Coffren recommends NCMEC's comprehensive resources on the topic.
Most importantly, Coffren advises parents to be unequivocally supportive of a child who shares that they've become a victim of online grooming.
"We put all of this pressure on children to be able to say, 'Never put yourself in that position,' instead of saying, 'OK, if you find yourself in that position, here's the steps you can do to be able to get out,'" Coffren says.
If you are a child being sexually exploited online, or you know a child who is being sexually exploited online, or you witnessed exploitation of a child occur online, you can report it to the CyberTipline, which is operated by the National Center for Missing Exploited & Children.
TL;DR: Live stream Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams for free on 7plus. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
The NFL action continues today with a showdown between teams from NFC North and NFC West, with the Green Bay Packers at the Los Angeles Rams.
Both teams have had patchy starts to the season. The Packers have alternated wins and losses over the first four weeks and took a hit when quarterback Jordan Love injured his MCL — but he was back in a loss against the Vikings and will look to secure the Packers' second win on the road so far this season.
The Rams, meanwhile, have struggled to get going this season but will have the edge on home turf. Their only win came at SoFi — against the 49ers, no less.
If you're interested in watching Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
When is Packers vs. Rams?Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams starts at 4:25 p.m. ET on Oct. 6. This fixture takes place at the SoFi Stadium.
How to watch Packers vs. Rams for freeGreen Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams is available to live stream for free on 7plus.
7plus is an Australian streaming site that's geo-restricted to viewers in the country. But anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These handy online tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) while connecting you to a secure server based in Australia. That will allow you to bypass geo-restrictions to access 7plus from anywhere in the world.
Access free live streams of the NFL 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 7plus
Live stream Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not technically free, but top VPN providers usually offer free trial periods or money-back guarantees. By making the most of these deals, you can access free live streams of the NFL without parting with any cash. This isn't a long-term solution, but it will give you enough time to watch Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams and other select NFL games before recovering any upfront investment.
What is the best VPN for the NFL?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream the NFL live, 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, which saves you 49% off the regular price. As part of this limited-time deal you'll also get an extra three months of coverage at no additional cost, a whole year of unlimited cloud backup for free, and a money-back guarantee within 30 days.
Live stream Green Bay Packers vs. Los Angeles Rams for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
TL;DR: Live stream New York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks for free on TVNZ+. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
As we enter Week 5 of the 2024 NFL season, the New York Giants are about to visit the Seattle Seahawks in a clash between AFC East and NFC West.
The Seahawks are looking good so far, having won in the first three weeks of games. They dropped a game against the Detroit Lions last week but still have the edge over the Giants, who have only managed a single win so far and lost three.
But there's a long way to go in the season. It's still all to play for — and you can stream the Sunday football action for free.
If you want to watch New York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks for free from anywhere around the world, here's all the information you need.
When is Giants vs. Seahawks?New York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks starts at 4.25 p.m. ET on Oct. 6. This fixture takes place at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington.
How to watch Giants vs. Seahawks for freeNew York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks is available to live stream for free on TVNZ+.
TVNZ+ is a New Zealand-based streaming site that's geo-blocked outside of the country. However, you still can access this free streaming platform from anywhere around the world by signing up for a VPN. A VPN is a useful online tool that will hide your real IP address (digital location) while also connecting you to a secure server in New Zealand. This will allow you to sidestep geo-restrictions and access TVNZ+ no matter where you're based.
Access free live streams of the NFL 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 New Zealand
Visit TVNZ+
Live stream New York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not actually free themselves, but the leading VPN services will usually offer free trial periods or money-back guarantee deals. Take advantage of this to access free live streams of the NFL without spending anything. It's obviously not a long-term solution, but it will give you enough time to watch New York Giants vs. Seattle Seahawks before recovering any initial downpayment.
What is the best VPN for the NFL?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream the NFL live, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including New Zealand
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, which is a huge saving of 49% on the regular price. Within this limited-time deal you'll also receive a bonus three months at no extra cost, a full year of unlimited cloud backup, and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.
Live stream Giants vs. Seahawks for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
TL;DR: Live stream New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings for free on ITVX. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
The NFL is back in London, but anyone from around the world can watch the New York Jets take on the Minnesota Vikings without spending anything. There's a quick and easy hack that can provide access to a free live stream of this exciting fixture, and we're not talking about those dodgy streams that leave your system exposed to the worst of the web.
If you're interested in watching New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.
When is Jets vs. Vikings?New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings starts at 9:30 a.m. ET on Oct. 6. This fixture takes place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
How to watch Jets vs. Vikings for freeNew York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings is available to live stream for free on ITVX.
ITVX is geo-restricted to the UK, but anyone can access this free streaming platform with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in the UK, meaning you can bypass geo-restrictions to access ITVX from anywhere in the world.
Access free live streams of the NFL 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 UK
Visit ITVX
Live stream New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but top VPNs do tend to offer free-trial periods or money-back guarantees. By making the most of these deals, you can access free live streams of the NFL without actually spending anything. This is obviously a quick fix, but it gives you enough time to watch New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings before recovering your investment.
What is the best VPN for the NFL?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream the NFL live, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including the UK
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, saving you 49% on list price. With this limited-time deal you'll also get an extra three months of coverage, a whole year of unlimited cloud backup, and a 30-day money-back guarantee for free.
Live stream New York Jets vs. Minnesota Vikings for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
TL;DR: Live stream Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals for free on TVNZ+. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
It's Week 5 of the 2024 NFL season, with the Baltimore Ravens visiting the Cincinnati Bengals for AFC North action. On paper this looks like a win for the Ravens, but as the saying goes in football: Any team can win or lose on any given Sunday.
The Ravens are tipped as one of the favorites for the Super Bowl, but between the regular season and playoffs there's a long way to go. So far they're 2-2, having dropped games to the Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Las Vegas Raiders. The Bengals, meanwhile, have scored just a single win so far.
If you want to watch Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals for free from anywhere around the world, here's all the information you need.
When is Ravens vs. Bengals?Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals starts at 1 p.m. ET on Oct. 6. This fixture takes place at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.
How to watch Ravens vs. Bengals for freeBaltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals is available to live stream for free on TVNZ+.
TVNZ+ is a New Zealand-based streaming site and is geo-restricted for viewers in that country only. However, anyone can access this free streaming platform by signing up for a VPN. A VPN is a useful tool that can hide your real IP address (digital location) while connecting you to a secure server in New Zealand. This will allow you to bypass geo-restrictions and access TVNZ+ no matter where you are around the globe.
Access free live streams of the NFL 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 New Zealand
Visit TVNZ+
Live stream Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not actually free to use themselves, but the best VPN services usually offer free trial periods or money-back guarantees. By taking advantage of these deals, you'll be able to access free live streams of the NFL without spending a penny. This is obviously a short-term fix, but it will give you enough time to watch Baltimore Ravens vs. Cincinnati Bengals before recovering any downpayment.
What is the best VPN for the NFL?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream the NFL live, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including New Zealand
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, which is a massive saving of 49%. As part of this limited-time deal you'll also get a bonus three months at no additional cost, a whole year of unlimited cloud backup, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Live stream Ravens vs. Bengals for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
Whether you work from home, find yourself on an airplane more often than not, or simply want to turn down the volume of the outside world, noise-cancelling headphones are exactly the tool you need.
Even the best value headphones will feel lacking if they don't come equipped with halfway decent noise cancellation. Besides, there are simply too many headphones on the market (our testing pool gets bigger month by month) for you to pay hundreds only to get subpar ANC.
SEE ALSO: How to find the best October Prime Day DealsTo help you pick the right model, Mashable editors and reviewers tested dozens of headphones and earbuds and picked out the best noise-cancelling headphones of 2024. And with Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days right around the corner, we've also added some buying tips for the sale on each of our picks below.
Do noise-cancelling headphones actually work?There's a big difference between outside noise being blocked and music simply being loud enough to drown it out. If you're looking for the maximum amount of noise cancellation, you want to go for headphones that have active noise cancellation.
Active noise-cancelling headphones electronically cover up the sounds coming from your surroundings by using internal microphones that listen to what's happening in the world around you, then invert the noise and send it to the speakers. The idea is that both the output and the input will cancel out, leaving you with near-silence. Over-ear headphones also create a tight seal around your ears that adds another layer of sound blocking.
SEE ALSO: With October Prime Day around the corner, shop these early deals on noise-cancelling headphonesIf you've tried a pair of noise-cancelling headphones before and haven't been impressed, don't be discouraged. It's partially about finding the headphones that match your preferences, as not all ANC performs equally. For instance, cheaper ANC headphones may have a more noticeable hissing sound that you'll hear when the noise cancellation is turned on, which can be distracting for some folks.
Other headphones may be great at blocking at low tones, but more prone to letting high-pitched tones in. Typically, more premium headphones will yield better results, but we have budget picks below that still do a solid job.
SEE ALSO: The 5 best budget wireless earbuds vetted by our headphones expertsIn the past, not many earbuds featured active noise cancellation that was comparable to over-ear headphones, but newer iterations like the AirPods Pro and Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds hold their own in the ANC space. However, even these earbuds can't quite get the same seal that headphones can, so if you're looking for maximum silence, you might be happier with over-ear headphones. However, if you want to cut down on the bulk, earbuds make for great alternatives.
What are the best noise-cancelling headphones to buy?Bose and Sony are both top names when it comes to any type of audio, but especially when it comes to noise cancellation. Both brands feature industry-leading ANC on top of superb sound quality. There are also some other brands and models worth checking out, so if you want to tune out ambient sound, we've laid everything out for you below, from your more premium options to your budget picks.
TL;DR: As of 5 October, you can get a lifetime license for PDF Converter Pro for just £19.03 instead of its regular £76.20 — that's a savings of 75%.
Opens in a new window Credit: Acethinker PDF Converter Pro: Lifetime License £19.03 at the Mashable ShopPDF Converter Pro can take the headache out of working with PDFs — and maybe even make them your favourite file format. And for a limited time, a lifetime license to the software is on sale for 75% off, knocking the price down to just £19.03.
Featured before at the Mashable Shop, PDF Converter Pro is an all-in-one software that lets you go back and forth between file types, converting PDFs into images or spreadsheets, and then back again. You can convert PDFs into Word documents, JPGs, Excel files, and more in just a few clicks. This makes sharing documents for work, tax season, dealing with signing legal documents, and more a seamless process. No more dealing with pixelated scans of documents. With OCT technology built in, you can use PDF Converter Pro to extract text from an image with a scan.
Besides converting to and from PDF, this software can also merge multiple PDFs into a single file, split up just the pages you need to create a new document, or just grab the images on a document and ditch the text entirely. Other convenient features include the ability to compress a PDF that’s too large, adding password protection to PDFs for sharing safely and securely, editing or signing PDFs, and plenty of supported format options for flexibility. It even works the same for both PC and Mac users.
Here's a closer look:
This discounted deal is only available to new users. So, if you missed out on the last sale, now’s the time to jump on it. Get PDF Converter Pro for life for only £19.03 for a limited time, down 75% from its regular £76.20 price. Your lifetime license includes updates, so you'll be set even if new file formats appear in the future.
Take advantage of this lower pricing at the Mashable Shop until 27 October.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
TL;DR: Live stream New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins for free on TVNZ+. Access this free streaming platform from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
Live streaming the NFL isn't always straightforward, which is a shame when so many games are must-watch. Let's be honest football fans: They're all must-watch games.
Today's AFC East showdown between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins will be of particular interest after shaky starts for both franchises — the Patriots have failed to notch up a single win since Week 1, while the Dolphins are on a three-week losing streak. Now in Week 5 — and with just one win apiece so far in the 2024 season — which team will score the win and look to build some momentum?
If you want to watch New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins for free from anywhere around the globe, we have all the information you need.
When is Patriots vs. Dolphins?New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins starts at 1 p.m. ET on Oct. 6. This fixture takes place at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
How to watch Patriots vs. Dolphins for freeNew England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins is available to live stream for free on TVNZ+.
TVNZ+ is geo-restricted for viewers in New Zealand, but anyone can access this free streaming platform by using a VPN. VPNs can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server within New Zealand, meaning you can bypass geo-restrictions to access TVNZ+ no matter where you are around the world.
Access free live streams of the NFL 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 New Zealand
Visit TVNZ+
Live stream New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins for free from anywhere in the world
The best VPNs for streaming are not free to use themselves, but the top VPN services tend to offer free trial periods or money-back guarantees. By taking advantage of these deals, you can access free live streams of the NFL without actually spending anything. This is obviously a short-term fix, but it will give you enough time to watch New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins before recovering any upfront investment.
What is the best VPN for the NFL?ExpressVPN is the best service for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream the NFL live, for a number of reasons:
Servers in 105 countries including New Zealand
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, which saves you 49% off the regular price. With this limited-time deal you'll also get an extra three months at no additional cost, a whole year of unlimited cloud backup, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Live stream New England Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins for free from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.
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: Here's the answer hints for October 6 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for October 6 NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Got any bleu cheese?These words will order a light but satisfying lunch.
Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explainedCobb salad ingredients.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?Today's NYT Strands spangram is vertical.
NYT Strands spangram answer todayToday's spangram is Cobbsalad.
Featured Video For You Strands 101: How to win NYT’s latest word game NYT Strands word list for October 6Eggs
Tomato
Greens
Bacon
Cobbsalad
Chicken
Vinaigrette
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.
Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer.
If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for October 6's Wordle solution revealed. 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 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for October 6 Where did Wordle come from?Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
What's the best Wordle starting word?The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website's creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.
Is Wordle getting harder?It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn't any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle's Hard Mode if you're after more of a challenge, though.
SEE ALSO: NYT's The Mini crossword answers for October 6 SEE ALSO: Mini crossword answers for October 6 Here's a subtle hint for today's Wordle answer:A refreshing drink that ferments slowly in cool conditions.
Does today's Wordle answer have a double letter?There are no reoccurring letters.
Today's Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with...Today's Wordle starts with the letter L.
SEE ALSO: Wordle-obsessed? These are the best word games to play IRL. SEE ALSO: Hurdle hints and answers for October 6 The Wordle answer today is...Get your last guesses in now, because it's your final chance to solve today's Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today's Wordle is...
LAGER.
Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle 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.
Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
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 Wordle.
Connections is the latest New York Times word game 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 October 6'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 SEE ALSO: Hurdle hints and answers for October 6 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 October 6 Here's a hint for today's Connections categoriesWant a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Yellow: Run away
Green: Cat things
Blue: Navigate a digital site
Purple: Types of cheese
Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:
Yellow: Turn Tail
Green: Things Cats Do
Blue: Pages on a Website
Purple: ___Cheese
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 #483 is...
What is the answer to Connections todayTurn Tail: FLEE, LEAVE, RETREAT, WITHDRAW
Things Cats Do: KNEAD, PURR, SCRATCH, SHED
Pages on a Website: ABOUT, CONTACT, HOME, LOGIN
___Cheese: COTTAGE, CREAM, GOAT, STRING
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.
SEE ALSO: Mini crossword answers for October 6If 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.
A story that unfolds on death's doorstep, Oh, Canada is a thoughtful, reflective work from Paul Schrader, if an occasionally rushed one. Whether or not its hurried approach is a defect — it most certainly plays like one, as though there was only so much time to wrap it up before the reaper comes a-calling — it also results in a more intimate embodiment of everything on Schrader's mind when it was made.
SEE ALSO: New York Film Festival preview: 10 movies you ought to know aboutThe tale of a documentary filmmaker on his deathbed who becomes the camera's subject, the film is based on the 2021 novel Foregone by Russell Banks. (Schrader previously adapted Banks' novel Affliction in 1997.) The author would sadly pass away in January 2023, a few months before filming began, and shortly after Schrader himself had a brush with death thanks to COVID-19.
This proximity to grief, and to the grave, informs Oh Canada's storytelling, which plays like a recollection of regrets. Its structure and narrative POV shift in beguiling ways, as though the movie's main character — played by two actors at different ages — was rushing to absolve himself of sin. Along the way, he confuses and collapses his many confessions into a single, muddled mythology that constantly shifts through elliptical editing, as if to reflect the character’s disoriented state of mind. The details may be unreliable, but his story pulses with riveting emotional truths, born from lifelong remorse.
What is Oh, Canada about?Now confined to hospice care, Canadian filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) agrees to an interview conducted by his former film students, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli) and Diana (Victoria Hill), during his final weeks of life. Cancer has ravaged his body, and his treatment has left him tired, but as an artist who has always used his camera to unearth people's truths, he hopes Malcolm and Diana's lens will do the same for him, and help him unburden himself as his wife, Emma (Uma Thurman), looks on.
Many details of Leonard's life are publicly known, especially his conscientious Vietnam draft-dodging, after which he left the U.S. for the Great White North as a political asylee. However, just as much of his story remains shrouded in mystery, which he now unpacks as last rite. In flashbacks set in the '60s and '70s, Leonard is played by Jacob Elordi (of Priscilla fame), though on occasion, Gere himself strides through scenes where Elordi ought to be, a swap that occurs either through straightforward cuts, or the occasional Texas Switch.
The seamlessness with which the older Leonard replaces his younger self has an eerie effect, as though something in the fabric of his story were deeply amiss. As he reveals some particularly shameful and macabre family secrets, Emma remains in denial over his revelations and insists that Leonard must be confused about the details. He is, in a way, given the overlap between events and characters he recalls, but all of these revelations come from a place of deep pain and repression. Whether or not they're logistically true, Gere makes their emotional truth feel undeniable via a towering, career-defining performance as a man both afraid and determined to stare at the camera and be seen by it, as he struggles to purge himself of demons that have long been eating at his soul.
Paul Schrader brings a thoughtful filmmaking eye to Oh, Canada. Credit: Cannes Film FestivalThroughout Oh, Canada, Leonard's regret is enhanced by Schrader's interrogative filmmaking, which draws from numerous documentarian techniques. The film for which he provides his personal testimony — about his own life, and his work as anti-war activist after his illegal border-crossing — takes the form of a traditional interview talking head, albeit with an aesthetic twist that yields several haunting close-ups.
In order to pay tribute to Leonard, his students film him with the use of a camera set-up he invented. In reality, this is the Interrotron developed by The Thin Blue Line director Errol Morris; it’s a teleprompter that allows the subject to meet the interviewer's eye (or rather, a reflection of it) while staring directly down the camera's lens. By attributing the tool to the fictitious Leonard, Schrader creates a double-edged sword. The technique has long afforded Leonard the comfort of sitting behind a video monitor, rather than meeting his subjects' gaze directly. But now, as the subject of his own camera, his confession occurs in a darkened, lonely room.
There are people nearby, like the filmmakers, and Leonard's wife, Emma, whose reflection theoretically appears in the teleprompter, but we only ever glimpse this briefly. For the most part, Schrader locks us into a trio of close-ups of Leonard from three angles (two profiles, and one directly head-on), which appear on side-by-side video screens for Malcolm and Diana, and whose angles Schrader often cuts between. This triptych framing makes the cameras feel incredibly invasive, and by almost never cutting away from Leonard's close-ups, Schrader forces us to view his self-reflections the way the aging documentarian sees them. His interviewers' faces may be visible to him on a screen, but he recognizes his own filmmaking facade, and he knows just how lonely he is, here at the end of his life.
This loneliness takes stirring form during Leonard's flashbacks, too. In isolated moments, Elordi and Gere's attention occasionally drifts from the characters to whom they're speaking, and their gaze falls upon nothing in particular, as though they know they're trapped in a framing device. People from other points in the story sometimes appear where they shouldn't, and on occasion, a white light consumes the frame, as though hypoxia (or the embrace of death) had threatened to provide Leonard with respite from his confessions.
The question then remains: Does Leonard want to die without having exposed the worst parts of himself?
Schrader's shifting narrative makes Oh, Canada a holistic self-reflection.Like Schrader's most recent works — especially First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener, a similarly confessional trilogy — Oh, Canada makes frequent use of voiceover. But in the aforementioned films, these narrations took the form of diary entries by each protagonist, whereas in the latest, the framing device is not only a camera this time, but one that isn't in Leonard's control.
Sometimes, the movie's voiceover comprises snippets from Leonard's filmed confession. Other times, it draws from an impassioned inner monologue. And on some occasions, the voiceover is spoken by a different character entirely, revealed to be a person who feels deeply betrayed by Leonard. In a literal sense, this patchwork of perspectives helps unearth Leonard's story from multiple points of view, as Schrader deconstructs both a man and the mythology around him.
However, this shifting POV also serves a spiritual purpose. In essence, it blends the known and the imagined, and plays as though Leonard were in a desperate grasp at absolutely, slowly stepping outside himself and finding sudden empathy for someone he had deeply — perhaps knowingly — wronged.
Credit: Canne Film FestivalOh, Canada is a work of deep-seated guilt frothing to the surface, and while its story is largely fictional, Schrader's presentation takes strikingly personal form. On one hand, the older Leonard is styled to resemble Banks — Schrader’s friend of many years, who requested the filmmaker to adapt Foregone before he died — but from many angles, this man with short, graying hair and an unkempt beard also resembles Schrader himself, who made the film when it seemed like the nearly 80-year-old filmmaker might not win his long battle with COVID and pneumonia. (He was hospitalized, and suffered breathing difficulties in the aftermath.)
But there's another personal element to the movie, too, one made far less apparent on screen. Around the time of Banks' death and Schrader's illness, the director also moved into an assisted living facility with his wife, Mary Beth Hurt, whose Alzheimer's had been worsening. Oh, Canada is as much a film about death and elusive truths as it is about memory and its fleeting nature, and it's hard not to read the visual manifestations of Leonard's confusion as Schrader's depiction of his wife's condition.
Moreover, it depicts a filmmaker whose confessions to his wife — a woman who knows him better than anyone, but still doesn't know his darkest moments — don't seem to stick, both because of his illness and his inability to properly articulate them. While Schrader's avatar suffers from distortions of recollection in the film, and is assisted by his wife, the reverse is true in reality. The idea of a man unable to fully give himself over to the woman he loves because of the impermanent nature of memory is the tragic result, regardless. While Oh, Canada talks through (but quickly skips past) many of these central themes — en route to a conclusion that wraps up too quickly, and too neatly — it stands as one of Schrader's most personal, most moving, and most impactful films.
Oh, Canada is slated to hit theaters this December.
UPDATE: Sep. 25, 2024, 4:44 p.m. EDT Oh, Canada was reviewed on May 30, 2024, out of the Cannes Film Festival. This post has been updated to toast its New York Film Festival premiere.
TikTok's legal troubles in the United States continue.
Reuters reported that the state of Texas sued TikTok on Thursday. According to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, TikTok has allegedly violated Texas state law and jeopardized children's safety with the popular video-sharing app's policies.
SEE ALSO: TikTok is convinced a buried rug in a woman's yard contains a bodyPaxton accused TikTok of not providing proper privacy settings for accounts belonging to children, as well as targeting advertising at children. He wants civil penalties of as much as $10,000 per violation of Texas's Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act.
This isn't the first time TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, has been sued over children's safety concerns in the U.S. The federal government sued the company with similar allegations back in August. In addition to that, the federal government is seeking to ban TikTok in the country due to alleged safety problems for American users.
In other words, enjoy TikTok while you can.
The 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, October 5, 2024:
AcrossLego pieceThe answer is Brick.
The answer is Google.
The answer is Bob Moog.
The answer is USA.
The answer is TVs.
The answer is Rottie.
The answer is Sleets.
The answer is Toad.
The answer is Boba Tea.
The answer is Rom.
The answer is I Got It.
The answer is Cloves.
The answer is Kegs.
The answer is Go Solo.
The answer is Burst.
The answer is Ted.
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.
Scientists have found a trio of stars dancing a high-speed cosmic do-si-do.
In fact, the stars' tempo is so rapid, astronomers have labeled this a new record: Here, a pair of stars orbit each other in less than two Earth days, while a third makes a trip around them in 25 days. Before this discovery, the fastest known three-star grouping was Lambda Tauri, with its farthest star circling in 33 days.
It took 68 years to beat the record holder. A NASA satellite, MIT researchers, artificial intelligence, and even a few amateur astronomers worked together to find the triplets, part of a system called TIC 290061484 in the constellation Cygnus.
"It’s exciting to identify a system like this because they’re rarely found," said Saul Rappaport, a retired MIT astronomer, in a statement, "but they may be more common than current tallies suggest."
SEE ALSO: Barnard's star tricked scientists before: why this planet is real.You can watch the stars' unique orbit in the video below:
NASA's TESS mission — short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — is mostly looking for new worlds as they pass in front of their host stars. But this unusual trio was detected because of the group's "strobe lights." The system is almost flat from the telescope's vantage point in space, so that means as the stars cross in front of each other during their orbits, they create eclipses. As the nearer star blocks the farther star's light, it will cause a flicker.
Amateur astronomers who were looking for interesting cases found the eclipse patterns among TESS data with the help of machine learning. These sleuths originally met as participants in an online citizen science program called Planet Hunters. Later they collaborated again with professional astronomers to form the Visual Survey Group, an ongoing project of more than a decade. The team's paper detailing the unusually fast triplets was published in The Astrophysical Journal this week.
The three stars are more massive than the sun, each ranging from six to eight times its weight. Based on their configuration, the stars' orbits are thought to be stable for millions of years. But, as they age, they'll eventually merge, exploding in a supernova and leaving behind a neutron star, one of the densest objects in space. That probably won't happen for 20 to 40 million years.
Amateur astronomers found the trio's eclipse patterns among NASA's TESS mission data. Credit: NASA illustrationSo far the team knows of no planets circling these stars. In the unlikely event that there is one, it would probably be far away, circling the three as if they were one star. The triplets' waltz through the sky is quite compact, happening within a ballroom more cramped than Mercury's orbit around the sun.
"No one lives here," Rappaport said. "We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars."
Scientists say more than half of all stars in the galaxy have one or more companion stars. These solar systems can differ widely. Some have large hot stars coupled with smaller cooler ones, or pairs in which one star cannibalizes the other. The systems discovered have ranged from two to seven stars.
The way these stellar groupings orbit each other can be extremely complex. In one six-star system, TYC 7037-89-1, three couples orbit each other, but two of the three pairs also circle one another. The third duo, in a vaster orbit, revolves around the other two pairs.
A grouping of six stars has an extremely complex set of interconnected orbits. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center infographicIn the newly discovered system, there's one more surprise. The stars are merely cogs in a larger machine. That's right: There's yet another comparable star among this group, making a distant loop over 3,200 days.
The team wants to continue studying TIC 290061484 to collect more data on the fourth straggler star, as well as capture more details about the other stars' orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures. With more sophisticated observatories in the future, such as NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope under development, studying other eclipsing star systems of even larger groups may become easier.
"Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn’t expect them to be out there," said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a research scientist at The University of Szeged in Hungary, in a statement. "But once we found them, we thought, 'Well, why not?'"
NASA's about to launch a huge spacecraft to a world harboring voluminous seas.
Planetary scientists suspect Jupiter's moon Europa contains an ocean at least twice the size of Earth's. The Europa Clipper probe — which is the length of a basketball court and the largest craft the agency has sent on a planetary mission — is slated to blast to this distant realm on Oct. 10. Before the launch, NASA released a new detailed view of the moon's cracked surface, which shows why for decades researchers have been drawn to this tantalizing place.
"It's perhaps one of the best places beyond Earth to look for life in our solar system," Cynthia Phillips, a NASA planetary geologist and project staff scientist for the space agency's Europa Clipper mission, told Mashable.
SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.On Oct. 2, NASA shared the view below, which was taken from data gathered by the Galileo mission in 1998. It shows a close-up of Europa's chaotic landscape, which is evidence that something below the moon's thick icy crust — like an ocean — is stoking lots of change and deformity. Salty water may escape to the surface along fractures, leaving telltale reddish colors on Europa's ground. And irregular chunks of ice have likely been created by relatively recent surface movement.
"This region sports ice rafts that look like those at Earth's poles, where large chunks of ice break away and float freely on the ocean," the agency wrote. "Much of the region bears the reddish/brownish discoloration seen here — the same as seen along many of Europa's fractures. Scientists believe this material may contain clues about the composition of an ocean beneath the icy surface, if it is proven to exist."
A region on Europa called "Conamara," which demonstrates the icy moon's chaotic surface. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Orion Moon An artist's conception of the Europa Clipper spacecraft flying by the ice-covered moon Europa. Credit: NASA / JPL-CaltechTo prove whether an ocean exists and if it could host suitable conditions for life, Europa Clipper will make around 50 close flybys of the moon's surface. It's fitted with a number of high-resolution cameras, a ground-penetrating radar, and even a device (called SUDA) that will literally sample particles of Europa that have been ejected into space by tiny meteorites.
After looping through the solar system on a 1.8-billion-mile (2.9-billion-kilometer) journey, the craft will arrive at Europa in 2030, and spend 3.5 years collecting unprecedented data. To determine if the Jupiter moon is habitable, mission scientists need to answer some major questions. For example, all life needs energy: Does this ocean world provide an energy source? And does it harbor the basic chemical ingredients, like carbon, to form the building blocks of life as we know it?
Tweet may have been deletedAnd, if all those conditions are satisfied, is there evidence the ocean has been around for billions of years, providing a stable environment for life to evolve and sustain itself in Europa's dark sea?
We'll find out.
Over-the-ear headphones are everyone's usual go-to solution for blocking out the world. And listen, I get it. You couldn't pry my Sony WH-1000XM4s out of my cold dead hands. But honestly, as much as I love them, carrying around a clunky pair of headphones when I'm on the go is not ideal. I want a pair of headphones to tuck in my pocket that will still block out noise. That's the promise of the best noise-cancelling earbuds
Every top brand has its own take on ANC earbuds, each with a unique style and a plethora of features. Since you can't possibly try them all, I've taken on the task of reviewing noise-cancelling earbuds for you.
How do noise-canceling earbuds work? Noise-cancelling earbuds are small enough to slip in your pocket. Credit: Samantha Mangino / MashableAll noise-canceling headphones, including earbuds, have some passive noise-cancellation. While over-the-ear headphones naturally block out noise by wrapping around the ears, earbuds don't block sound as effectively. Instead of covering your ears, wireless earbuds deliver sound directly into the ear canal to drown out other noises. They rely more on active noise cancellation (ANC) to reduce environmental noise.
ANC is an electronic process within the headphones. Internal microphones listen to your surroundings and then invert the sound, effectively canceling it. Sometimes, with noise-canceling headphones and earbuds, you'll hear a slight buzzing or humming in the background, and that's the ANC at work. The best ANC earbuds shouldn't have this buzzing, however.
What are the best noise-cancelling earbuds? Not all earbuds are created equal — some are far more comfortable than others. Credit: Samantha Mangino / MashableWhile there are plenty of audio brands that provide good sound quality and noise cancellation, audio leaders Bose and Sony are in a league of their own. Not only do they offer phenomenal ANC, but they also make music and podcasts sound better. On a good pair of headphones, "Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter sounds even catchier with its sickly sweet tune.
Earbuds usually aren't as comfortable as over-the-ear headphones. I know this well, as I've found many pairs of earbuds that just plain don't fit in my ear. Others are downright uncomfortable. Once again, Bose tends to offer the best comfort. However, Bose and Sony aren't the only brands out there. That's why I set out to test the best the market offers and see what makes a great pair of earbuds.
Since you probably don't want to go through the process of buying and returning a dozen pairs of noise-cancelling earbuds before finding the right ones, I did that work for you.
"Stunning" doesn't even begin to cover it, but RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys is one of those rare Hollywood productions — perhaps alongside this year's I Saw the TV Glow — that feels aesthetically transformative. A moving film about a violent reform school in 1960s Florida, it adapts Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys in a particularly arch manner, bringing to life its story of young Black teens caught in an oppressive system (as well as the real events on which the book was based) with meticulous detail.
SEE ALSO: New York Film Festival preview: 10 movies you ought to know aboutThe film is told, for the most part, through first-person point of view, a tall ask for audiences accustomed to more traditional filmmaking. However, over the course of its 140 minutes, Nickel Boys unfurls numerous pathways into its unique construction, practically teaching viewers how to watch it, as it builds a tale of personhood that's as intimate in presentation as it is political in implication. In Whitehead's novel, the words on the page are just as meaningful as the blank spaces between them — an approach Ross recreates not through absence, but through the layered use of archival video and images that blend fiction with reality in both wistful and harrowing ways.
All the while, Ross avoids the tendency to luxuriate in the visually traumatic; instead, he maneuvers around cinematic exploitation by embodying the bone-deep effects of trauma. The film's non-linear structure occasionally flashes forward several decades, mimicking how profoundly our minds and bodies keep the score. Few narrative feature debuts have felt so poignant and so richly formed that they practically speak their own language, as Nickel Boys does, while also managing to articulate its drama clearly and instinctively. The result is a dynamic work of resilience and self-actualization.
What is Nickel Boys about?The film, like the novel, follows 16-year-old Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a promising teen from Tallahassee who lives with his grandmother, Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), and navigates the Jim Crow-era South. On his way to a technical college for advanced classes, the high schooler finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to false charges of theft and internment at the Nickel Academy, an isolated juvenile home on a sprawling estate that presents itself as a place of hard work and reform.
A young adherent of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Elwood's idealism quickly clashes with Nickel's harsh reality of segregation and corporal punishment. However, he also finds guidance and companionship in Turner (Brandon Wilson), a fellow student hailing from Houston whose more upbeat demeanor and slick survival tips exists in close proximity to his own fears of the school's ruthless staff. Should the boys misbehave, they know that the ominous administrator Spencer (Hamish Linklater) will whisk them away in the middle of the night for a severe beating — or something worse. (The film makes the novel's implications of sexual violence slightly more pronounced.)
What is perhaps most surprising about Nickel Boys is how casually this information is relayed to Elwood. The fates of several former students who have "mysteriously" disappeared isn't so much rumor and innuendo as it is common knowledge among the boys, keeping them in line as they toil away from dawn to sundown, plowing fields and making local deliveries for what one assumes is little (if any) pay. The film evokes images of American slavery at every turn, between white students overseeing their Black counterparts as they pick crops, to rusty rings that have been embedded in the nearby trees for so long that they're practically part of the foliage, conjuring images of young Black boys chained up in the darkness.
These evocations exist in the minds of the audience thanks to the prominence of slavery cinema (and television, à la Roots). Few mainstream films, however, have focused on the kind of institutional violence directly descended from chattel slavery a century later in the way Nickel Boys does. Its echoes don't point to older horrors, but ones that were still alive and well when the film was set, and for many years after. Ross simply threads the needle in ways most viewers might understand, frequently employing footage of the Sidney Poitier-led prisoner drama The Defiant Ones to further make its point in montage.
"There are four ways out of Nickel," Turner says. There's aging out at 18, being let out for good behavior, and if you're lucky — as Elwood hopes to be, with his grandma's help — having family contact lawyers to have your sentence overturned, though this is a long and arduous process. The fourth way out is the most dangerous, so few avail of it: escaping Nickel's grounds, at the risk of being chased and killed. For Turner, the film is about finding ways to adapt and survive. However, the more book-smart Elwood believes in a fifth way: challenging the system itself, given its illegal practices, though this may be even riskier. Ruffle any feathers when inspectors come to visit, and you'll end up being "taken out back."
With the boys torn between trying to withstand a system and dismantle it from within, the stakes are monumental, even though much of the movie unfolds across gentle scenes of blossoming friendship and mutual understanding. These are told mostly through Elwood's eyes, and on occasion, Turner's. However, Nickel Boys harbors a sense of tragic inevitability. Brief scenes of Elwood in the future — played by Hamilton original Daveed Diggs — signal their removal from the '60s through shots of computer screens and contemporary paraphernalia, but remain tethered to the era through Elwood's research into the past, as news stories of the school's mass graves come to light.
In these moments, the movie's self-imposed visual constraints also become its biggest strengths.
Nickel Boys takes a powerful aesthetic approach.Ross is hardly the first filmmaker to employ point-of-view shots for lengthy stretches. Temporal experiments like Russian Ark and the video game gimmick of Hardcore Henry come to mind, but Nickel Boys is most like the films of Gaspar Noé in this regard, especially his spiritual, out-of-body POV experience Enter the Void, albeit in a much more grounded manner. From its opening frames, Ross' adaptation, co-written by Joslyn Barnes, feels fully embodied in its mood and motions, as an adolescent Elwood catches glimpses of himself in reflective surfaces, like bus windows and his grandmother's steam iron. It feels worth mentioning that The Nickel Boys is largely written in third person, but the film's astounding narrative shift accentuates the nuances of Whitehead's drama and characterization.
Between the young child's observations of Hattie's daily life and his viewing of Dr. King Jr.'s speeches on TV screens in store windows — his own reflection visible all the while — he begins to come to an awareness of his own place in the world. This is crystalized in a key POV shot of Elwood looking down at his arms and inspecting his own skin, echoing the writings of James Baldwin on similarly formative realizations of Blackness in his youth.
It's an inciting incident of sorts, shaping Elwood's understanding of himself while situating the audience firmly in his perspective, though Ross makes certain visual adjustments along the way. While the camera's movements mimic reality, cinematographer Jomo Fray uses soft focus and telephoto lenses to strip away the image's topmost naturalistic layers, especially in moments of extreme close-up. While still captured from a distinct perspective, these highly textured shots zero in on sensory details in ways that make them feel like nostalgic memories. When Hattie's cake knife rattles along a plate, as she cuts Elwood a slice of a homemade, spongy delicacy, you can practically smell the warmth and love with which it was baked.
This impressionism is complemented by an essayistic use of archival footage, sourced mostly from the African American Home Movie Archive. (Some of it also comes from NASA; the Space Race, with "Whitey[s] on the Moon," is the grand American antithesis to the reality of Black boys at Nickel.) Old film footage of Black children and families in joyful moments is intercut and contrasted with the boys at the Academy, matching their movements, and transporting us rhythmically from the confines of their harsh surroundings to a wider world outside, albeit briefly. The movie, despite its mimicry of human perspective, employs a narrow 4:3 aspect ratio, creating a sense of tunnel vision that keeps Elwood and Turner practically blinkered. They can't see past their oppressive confines — and so the film, in a way, imagines the outside world and its liberation for them. The viewer's desire to see them freed becomes all the more pressing.
However, when the movie's borrowed footage begins incorporating the magnetic flaws of video tape — a format that wouldn't be popular for decades after the film is set — it pulls the viewer forward through time, in a way. This takes the form of vignettes of life in Harlem in the '80s, where we also glimpse an adult Elwood, but this isn’t the only way the movie signals its cinematic time travel.
While the use of interspersed archive footage is intentionally scattered, almost random, the way the narrative hops back and forth is much more precise. In a moment when Elwood becomes the victim of his school's corporal punishment, Ross makes a masterful switch with disquieting impact and presents him from the rear, shooting his back as though he had slipped outside himself. This moment of traumatic dissociation carries over into the movie's future scenes, wherein Elwood (Diggs) is shot exclusively with a "Snorricam" rig attached to his body from the rear, matching his every moment so that we remain fixed to his point of view — but so that his perspective is now removed from his sense of physical self, thanks to the violence he endured as a child.
This is also when the movie begins employing real-world photographs and news footage of the Dozier Academy, the actual school on which Whitehead modeled Nickel, down to the shed reserved for the boys' harshest physical punishments. Although we don't spend much time with the older Elwood, he becomes the center of some of the most emotionally striking scenes. Diggs effectively "operates" the camera through his body language. When Elwood runs into a now-adult schoolmate who recounts his own harrowing tales — a tremendous one-scene performance by Craig Tate — his hesitance to chat, and his reluctance to be vulnerable, become heartbreakingly embodied by the minor movements of the frame.
There's no such aesthetic equivalent for trauma in literature, or in any other medium, but Ross' film deftly captures the silent poetry between Whitehead's words, making it a particularly potent work of adaptation.
Nickel Boys is a magnificent literary translation.While there are minor plot departures along the way, the biggest difference between Nickel Boys and Whitehead's novel is the way it expands upon (and arguably deepens) the material through sheer aesthetic force. Some of this occurs during fleeting moments — Alex Somers and Scott Alario's rustling, clanking score captures the academy's foreboding when it first appears — but much of it comes down to Ross' approach to translating between mediums.
The director only has one other feature under his belt, the immense and oblique documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, but it makes for a perfect B-side to Nickel Boys. The Oscar–nominated doc uses similar techniques, with close-ups of sensory moments disembodied from time used to illustrate the daily lives of Black residents of Alabama. Whitehead's novel comes with a similar level of detail, with each description of a person, object, or even surface hinting at a deeper history, which Ross subsequently captures through Elwood and Turner's eyes, focusing on each fleeting feature just long enough to conjure thought and feeling.
SEE ALSO: 10 books that helped Colson Whitehead write 'The Underground Railroad'However, the film practically outdoes its source material in its conception of both leads. In portraying the world through Elwood and Turner's eyes, Ross confers a constant sense of personhood upon the camera, forcing the viewer to reflect on each moment as an extension of someone's humanity. But in switching between the two boys' points of view, Nickel Boys also takes on a more traditionally cinematic form when they're together, cutting between their close-ups, as though their connection had inadvertently conjured familiar comforts. The film, in this way — and through its deeply considered performances — approaches a love story. Whether or not it's remotely queer or romantic, it features a sense of gentleness that must exist by necessity, in order for the two boys to simply survive.
The film's use of POV also brings to mind the work of Barry Jenkins — who, as it happens, adapted another Whitehead novel, The Underground Railroad. Jenkins' work makes frequent use of characters looking straight down the lens so we can reflect on their humanity, a technique that was further emphasized in The Gaze, a video exhibit that spun out of Railroad. Ross' approach, however, plays like its equal and opposite. In employing a first-person perspective to this degree, Nickel Boys presents each supporting character — those who love Elwood, and those who would do him harm — through similar shots of them staring at the camera, and revealing their most honest selves in the process. However, they act as mirrors too, constructing numerous conceptions of Elwood's humanity as well, just from the way they look at him.
The result is not just dehumanization at close proximity, but what critic Robert Daniels calls, in his review of The Underground Railroad, a subsequent "re-humanization." In Nickel Boys, the camera constructs a powerful sense of self and personhood through the kind of thoughtful, propulsive artistry the American mainstream has seldom seen, making its opposition to violence and racist oppression wholly self-evident through its visual approach. The film is unlike anything else, but it feels intimately familiar.
Nickel Boys was reviewed out of its New York Film Festival Premiere. It will open on Dec. 13 in NYC and in Los Angeles Dec. 20.
Nuclear fuel lasts a long time. But not forever.
Both Voyager craft, launched in 1977, convert heat produced by the decay of radioactive plutonium-238 into electricity. Over the decades, NASA engineers have strategically shut off instruments to extend the life of Voyager 1 and 2, which are respectively well over 15 and 12 billion miles away. As their mission nears a half century, this fuel is dwindling, and the agency just turned off another gadget on Voyager 2, leaving it with four remaining science instruments.
"Mission engineers have taken steps to avoid turning off a science instrument for as long as possible because the science data collected by the twin Voyager probes is unique," NASA said in a statement. "No other human-made spacecraft has operated in interstellar space, the region outside the heliosphere."
SEE ALSO: NASA spacecraft keeps on going faster and faster and fasterThe gadget the space agency shuttered on Sept. 26 is the "plasma science" instrument. It measured the flow of electrically charged atoms in space, particularly from the solar wind — a relentless flow of these particles from the sun. But in 2018, Voyager 2 left our solar system's heliosphere — a protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the sun and solar wind — and entered interstellar space. The instrument was rarely being used, so it could be sacrificed.
The four remaining instruments on Voyager 2 are:
- Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS): A particle detector that looks for the highest-energy types of particles, such as from other stars. "The CRS makes no attempt to slow or capture the super-energetic particles," NASA explains. "They simply pass completely through the CRS. However, in passing through, the particles leave signs that they were there."
- Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP): Another particle detector, whose work overlaps with the Cosmic Ray Subsystem. The LECP captures energetic particles from planets, stars, and the greater galaxy.
- Magnetometer (MAG): This instrument measures the sun's magnetic field and previously did so with the magnetic fields of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS): Two antennae that observed plasma environments near the outer planets and now do so in interstellar space.
Voyager 1 has the same last four instruments running, too.
A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which generates electricity for the Voyager mission. Each craft carries three of these. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech A graphic showing the different science instruments on the Voyager craft. Credit: NASA / JPL-CaltechThe plutonium fuel supply will gradually produce less power as it loses 4 watts each year. A toaster uses 800 to 1500 watts, and, amazingly, each Voyager craft only generates around 249 watts.
Yet even with this dwindling power, the craft can still speak with NASA. To turn off the plasma science instrument, the agency beamed a radio signal 12.8 billion miles through space. It took 19 hours to reach Voyager 2, and another 19 to send a return message.
The space agency expects that the Voyagers have enough fuel to operate with "at least one operational science instrument into the 2030s." Sometime that decade, the craft will likely lose its ability to communicate. Yet the greater mission of interstellar communication — as each craft packs information about our civilization — will carry on for billions of years.
Godspeed.
TL;DR: Save 75% on this classic MacBook Air with a refurbished model while supplies last.
Like almost everyone, I’ve always wanted a Mac. Maybe it was watching Carrie Bradshaw write with one or seeing them around my college campus, but the price tag always kept me a (regretfully) loyal PC user. Then I heard about refurbished MacBook deals. I nabbed a MacBook Air for only $239.99 (a $999 value) — can you believe it?
How is it so cheap?Refurbished laptops are pre-owned computers that are given a second chance at life. As someone who buys dented cans of soup in the grocery store because I feel bad for them, I love this idea — and it’s better for the environment. The laptop arrived with normal amounts of wear on the outside, which I covered up with a cute pink case.
My MacBook Air was originally from 2017, so it’s a classic model. I know some Mac users want the fanciest features (honestly, if I had the cash, I would too), but I really only needed a laptop for home use — aka online shopping, streaming movies in bed, and the occasional Microsoft Office session.
Check out the laptop’s specs:
13.3-inch screen
Intel Core i5
8GB of RAM
128GB SSD storage
Up to 12 hours of battery life
Weighs under three pounds
This MacBook works just fine for my needs. I notice lagging when I have around 30+ Chrome tabs open, but my PC was the same way, so that’s what I expected.
I can still hardly believe I saved 75% on this refurbished MacBook Air. They’re selling out fast, though, so if you want one, get yours for $239.99 (reg. $999) before they’re gone.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Air 13.3" (2017) 1.8GHz i5 8GB RAM 128GB SSD Silver (Refurbished) $239.99
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