Huge means

Have you ever opened social media and realized that a complicated news story happened while you were away? That’s how it feels to be OOTL, or “out of the loop.” Out of the Loop and in the Loop OOTL and ITL stand for “out of the loop” and “in the loop,” respectively. In both of these phrases, “the loop” generally refers to being knowledgeable or aware of a topic, such as recent events. Being OOTL means that you’re ignorant about a particular subject, while being ITL means that you’re knowledgeable and a part of the conversation. Someone who isn’t ITL would therefore be OOTL. The phrases that these two acronyms come from have been in the English lexicon for a very long time and have generally retained a similar meaning. OOTL is similar to other initialisms like LTTP and ELI5, which stand for “late to the party” and “explain like I’m five,” respectively. All of them indicate that you don’t entirely know or understand something and would like it explained. On the other hand, … [Read more...] about What Do “OOTL” and “ITL” Mean, and How Do You Use Them?

Telegram and Signal are widely popular privacy-focused messaging apps. However, the two apps have some big differences : While all messages sent via Signal are always end-to-end encrypted by default, Telegram messages aren’t. End-to-end encryption is an optional feature in Telegram. Why End-to-End Encryption Matters End-to-end encryption means that only the sender and the receiver of a message can see its contents. Not even the company running the server in the middle of the conversations can see the contents of the communications. With Signal, all conversations are always end-to-end encrypted: The Signal Foundation can’t see the contents of the messages. With Telegram, the company in charge of Telegram is technically capable of seeing the contents of the messages on its servers. There is still some encryption in Telegram, of course: Encryption is used to transmit messages between your Telegram app, Telegram’s servers, and the other person’s Telegram app. Your … [Read more...] about PSA: Telegram Chats Aren’t End-to-End Encrypted by Default

Your Mac hijacking your cursor and asking you to wait around is never welcome. People call it different things, including the spinning wheel, beachball, or pinwheel of death. The good news is a spinning wheel means macOS hasn’t crashed completely. You might be able to wrestle back control. What Is the Spinning Wheel of Death on a Mac? That rainbow spinning wheel (whatever you might call it) is a common macOS wait cursor. It’s triggered when an application doesn’t respond for a few seconds and signals that you should wait before giving the app more instructions. This isn’t to be confused with the blue spinning wheel, which is also sometimes called the “JavaScript pinwheel.” A blue wheel mostly appears in web content when running Java apps. It usually occurs when a website sends a wait command. It often appears in web apps, like Google Sheets. How to Fix the Spinning Wheel of Death A spinning wheel (or beachball) is a sign from the operating system that an app isn’t … [Read more...] about How to Stop the Spinning Wheel on Your Mac

Thirty years ago—on January 15, 1991 —an American college student named Tim Sweeney released ZZT , a low-key adventure game with a revolutionary element: It shipped with a free, built-in game editor. ZZT’s success spawned Epic Games, Unreal Engine, and most recently, Fortnite . Here’s why ZZT was special. What’s a “ZZT,” Anyway? Tim Sweeney’s passion for programming began on his Apple II when he was a kid. After getting his first IBM PC in 1989 during his freshman year of college, he dove head-first into programming the new machine. While creating an MS-DOS text editor using Turbo Pascal in 1990, he decided to make the project more fun by adding game-like elements. That evolved into ZZT , which was released as shareware in 1991. The genius of ZZT in the early 1990s was that it wasn’t just a cute ASCII-based adventure. With every copy of ZZT downloaded, players also got an in-game world editor for free. That’s because ZZT’s text editor roots meant … [Read more...] about Before Fortnite, There Was ZZT: Meet Epic’s First Game

The Apple Watch should have enough charge to last you a full day with moderate-to-heavy use. If you don’t use it a ton, you might even get more than a day out of it! But what do you do when your Watch battery just doesn’t last long enough? Here are some tips for making your Apple wearable last longer. Disable Always-On Display (Series 5 and Later) The Apple Watch Series 5 and later (except the SE) boasts an always-on display. This means there’s no need to flick your wrist or tap the screen to see the time. Apple uses some clever tricks to reduce power consumption to make this possible, including lowering the display’s refresh rate from 60Hz (60 refreshes per second) to just 1Hz. You can save even more power by simply turning off the always-on display, and then just raising the Watch to wake it. To do so, open the Watch app on your iPhone, tap General > Display & Brightness, and then uncheck “Always On.” Use a Dark Watch Face and Reduce Brightness The display in … [Read more...] about How to Improve Your Apple Watch’s Battery Life: 12 Tips