Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Google The Pixel 4a was released earlier this year and came in any color you like, as long as it’s black. Well, that’s changing as Google is now making a “Barely Blue” variant available to purchase. You can buy it at the same $349 price point as the existing Just Black variant. Fun naming schemes…

A small and cheap Dell OptiPlex desktop—perfect for Android TV x86 Dell/Google Why buy an NVIDIA Shield when you can add Android TV to your old Windows laptop? An unofficial Android TV x86 port allows you to turn just about any Intel or AMD PC into a snappy Android TV media center. Created by XDA…

NASA/Joel Kowsky Over the weekend, SpaceX made history by successfully launching its first operational flight with four astronauts in the commercially-developed Crew Dragon. The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday marked the beginning of a 27-hour journey to the International Space Station (ISS). It was also SpaceX’s first flight with an international…

ymphotos With Thanksgiving and other holidays are right around the corner (and COVID-19 still at large), video chat app Zoom will be temporarily disabling its 40-minute limit on Thanksgiving Day. This will allow families to chat with each other as long as they want and better enjoy the family-centric holiday while remaining socially distanced and…

Microsoft Excel may be known for complex calculations and formulas, but it’s no slouch at simple arithmetic. There are a number of ways to find solutions to simple math problems, like finding the sum of numbers in multiple cells. Finding the Sum of Numbers in Adjacent Columns or Cells The quickest way to calculate the…

Google To give users control of their data, Gmail now shows a pop-up asking users to opt-in or opt-out of smart features and product personalization. The blanket settings turn off smart compose, automatic email filtering, and other features for peace of mind while using Gmail, Meet, or Chat. Emphasis on “peace of mind.” In a…

iFixit The iPhone 12 Mini was released on Friday, November 13th. It didn’t take our friends at iFixit long to do its thing to the little guy, and the findings are interesting. Just how did Apple make the 12 Mini so small? By shrinking components, apparently. Digging through the teardown shows a lot of familiar…

HBO When the many-headed demon of AT&T-Warner-HBO launched its attempt at a streaming service back in May, it came with everything you could want…except support for Roku and Fire TV, two of the most popular smart TV platforms on the planet. HBO Max still doesn’t work on Roku, but it looks like AT&T and Amazon…

Creating and joining a team in Microsoft Teams is easy. Visually identifying a team from a long list of teams, on the other hand, can be more difficult. Give your teams a visual identity by adding a unique logo to each one. It’s quite normal to have a list of teams in Microsoft Teams, each…

Samsung Your TV isn’t just a TV anymore: it has Wi-Fi, apps, and maybe even a few games. Why should your monitor do any less? That seems to be Samsung’s line of thinking with its new Smart Monitor line. These are clearly meant to be used with PCs, but also include features that make them…

Facebook has merged Messenger and Instagram DMs. This means anyone from Facebook can slide into your Instagram DMs. If you prefer keeping your Facebook and Instagram profiles separate, this can be a cause for concern. Thankfully, Instagram allows you to easily cut off this link. Open the Instagram app on your Android phone or iPhone. Navigate…

Netflix/YouTube Happy mid-November, Netflixers! Your to-watch list is about to grow, and for those who are feeling festive, there’s even more holiday content. This week, the streaming service is dropping a sequel to one of its most popular Christmas films, as well as another holiday-themed flick starring Dolly Parton. But don’t worry—there are also a…

Google Cloud Platform comes with a suite of monitoring tools that track metrics on any cloud resource you’re using, which can help you spot problems in your infrastructure. On top of that, it features full support for AWS as well. Setting Up A Monitoring Dashboard By default, GCP creates dashboard for some major resources, such…

If you’d like your iPhone or iPad wallpaper to change when you switch between light and dark mode, you can use special wallpapers provided by Apple that include both light and dark versions. Here’s how to set it up. First, open the “Settings” app on your iPhone or iPad. In Settings, tap “Wallpaper.” In Wallpaper…

aleksandr talancev/Shutterstock We all know that one person who can’t go a season without grilling up their favorite flame-kissed meal in the backyard. The only problem at holiday time is finding a handy accessory or tool they don’t already own. But don’t worry—that’s where we come in! BBQ Gloves and Meat Claws Set If that…

RAVPower No one likes a dead battery, so a portable battery is an excellent tech gift for everyone on your list. But one thing that will be different from person to person is what type of battery they need, so we found battery packs that cover everyone’s needs to fill out your shopping list this…

Rating: 9/10 ? 1 – Absolute Hot Garbage 2 – Sorta Lukewarm Garbage 3 – Strongly Flawed Design 4 – Some Pros, Lots Of Cons 5 – Acceptably Imperfect 6 – Good Enough to Buy On Sale 7 – Great, But Not Best-In-Class 8 – Fantastic, with Some Footnotes 9 – Shut Up And Take…

Amazon There are a lot of benefits that come with an Amazon Prime membership. Most people are familiar with the two-day shipping and Prime Video streaming, but there’s more. Did you know you also have access to a catalog of free eBooks? What Is Prime Reading? Amazon’s free eBook program is called Prime Reading. You…

Visual Studio “Solutions” are able to store multiple projects and assemblies. Usually, they’re fairly separate, but what if you need to share code among them? One of the simplest ways to do this properly is with symlinks. Linking Files Across Projects First, you should ask yourself if symlinks is really the best method to handle…

Harry Guinness Lens flare is an optical effect in which light is scattered inside the body of a camera lens and appears in a photo as an artifact or contrast-reducing haze. It’s usually undesirable, but sometimes, you might want to use it for artistic or stylistic purposes. What Causes Lens Flare? Modern lenses are incredibly…