Buy a Lenovo smart alarm clock for $30, and Walmart includes a free smart bulb
Buy a Lenovo smart alarm clock for $30, and Walmart includes a free smart bulb
What's better than a big discount on a smart alarm clock? How about getting that reduced price plus a free smart light bulb thrown in for good measure? That's precisely what Walmart is doing right now. Originally costing $50, the basic-looking Lenovo Smart Clock Essential now costs $30. And as part of the deal, Walmart will also include one Lenovo Smart Color Bulb.
While Lenovo has cut the price of this particular bulb, it'll still set you back $6.
Read more: Best alarm clock of 2021
The Smart Clock Essential is not a true smart display: Its simple LED can't showcase video or photos. That said, it does have built-in support for Google Assistant and a speaker with good sound quality. It also has a nightlight that you can use for sunrise alarms.
"It sounds great for its size and it offers all of the features you'd expect from a Google Assistant smart speaker," said CNET's Andrew Gebhart in his Lenovo Smart Clock Essential review -- and he liked it at $50.
This is definitely a red-hot special so best get it while supplies last.
Trouble Sleeping? Your Diet Could Be Preventing Quality Rest
Trouble Sleeping? Your Diet Could Be Preventing Quality Rest
The food you eat impacts almost everything you do, which is one reason why it's so important to be conscious of what you put in your body. Good nutrition has tons of perks: It reduces the risk of diseases such as stroke, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, boosts your mood and makes you feel more energized. It can even improve how you sleep at night, another major aspect to having a healthy body and mind. A full night's sleep offers a lot of the same benefits as conscious eating. In fact, they go hand in hand.
Eating the wrong foods at the wrong time can be harmful to your sleep quality, which plays an important role in maintaining your physical and mental health. On the flip side of the same token, you have a higher chance of making poor food choices after a night of bad sleep. Below, learn how you can improve your food choices to get higher-quality rest, including the best foods for better sleep and what you need to avoid.
Read also:How to Stay Cool at Night Even When It's Hot Outside
How poor sleep affects your health
The recommended amount of sleep for adults is seven to nine hours each night. During that time, your brain cycles through the four stages of sleep: three stages of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) and one stage of REM (rapid eye movement).
NREM sleep: The quiet sleep stages where your brain is working to retain memories and knowledge, in addition to repair, refresh, and restore your body.
REM sleep: The active sleep stage where your body is working to repair cells and muscle tissue, promote bone and muscle growth and helps strengthen the immune system.
If you're waking up often in the middle of the night or have trouble getting a full night's sleep, you prevent your body from running through its necessary processes that keep you healthy and productive. Continuous poor sleep puts you at risk for:
Heart disease
Stroke
Weight gain
High blood pressure
Bad memory
Weakened immune system
Unbalanced nutrition tends to be a common culprit for poor sleep, especially if you're eating certain foods too close to bedtime.
There's several foods you shouldn't eat too close to bedtime.
Natalia Lavrenkova/EyeEm/Getty Images
Nutrition for quality sleep
There seems to be a clear link between nutrition and your quality of sleep. To find out more, I spoke to Stephanie Nelson, a registered dietitian who works as a nutrition expert at the tracking app MyFitnessPal. Nelson explained, "The relationship between sleep and nutrition is very complex and we don't know everything about all the associations between sleep and food. However, a good general summary is that any biological process, including sleep, is influenced by getting the right amount of nutrients. "
"For example, having high blood sugar impacts your energy in the moment, which can prevent you from sleep," Nelson continued. "Other nutrients impact neurotransmitters that make it easier to relax and turn your brain off for sleep."
While food affects sleep, the amount of quality sleep you get can also impact your eating habits. Nelson said, "Interestingly, the relationship goes both ways. There's research showing that poor sleep can negatively impact hormone balances that affect your hunger, and people who sleep less tend to eat more overall."
Making more conscious choices about food and when you're eating it can make a big difference in your sleep quality.
The do's and don'ts on eating for better sleep
Here are Nelson's tips on how to eat for better sleep.
Do's
1. Eat a balanced dinner
"The building blocks of a balanced dinner are a protein source, high-fiber carbohydrate source, and a vegetable. This might look like a grilled marinated chicken breast, some quinoa, and roasted veggies," said Nelson. "You could also get more creative with it, like a coconut curry made with tofu and sauteed veggies, served over brown rice, or tacos made with the protein of your choice, some beans, and cabbage and onions (and all your other favorite toppings)."
A balanced diet is critical to good sleep.
Getty Images/Burcu Atalay Tankut
2. Eat foods that promote serotonin production
Serotonin is required for your body to make melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep. But Nelson also warns that toomuch serotonin is associated with poor sleep.
"In order for your body to produce the right amount of serotonin, you need to consume tryptophan, an amino acid you can find in most animal-based foods, oats, nuts, and seeds," Nelson explained. "You also need to have a carbohydrate source, which allows for tryptophan to be used for serotonin rather than other processes. Other nutrients like vitamin B6, present in sweet potatoes among other foods, are also needed for the right amount of serotonin production."
3. Eat around three hours before bedtime
You might have heard that you shouldn't eat right before bedtime if you want a good night's rest. But how soon, exactly, should you stop eating? "It's different for everyone," said Nelson. "Most experts recommend to eat three hours before bedtime for best sleep results, so start there, but definitely play with it. Some people can eat closer to bedtime and still have a good night's sleep," she said.
Don'ts
1. Avoid caffeine, sugary drinks and alcohol before bed
You probably know that caffeine isn't the best nighttime beverage, but what about alcohol or juices? Nelson says you should try to avoid those in the hours right before bed too.
"Being hydrated is key to a good night's sleep," she said. "Alcohol dehydrates you, so for the first step, reduce alcohol consumption near bedtime. High sugar drinks also can interfere with sleep, and anything with caffeine."
"If you're having trouble sleeping, definitely check when your most recent caffeinated beverages are consumed before bed," she noted.
2. Don't eat dessert close to bedtime
For individuals with a sweet tooth, don't eat foods like ice cream, cookies or chocolate before bedtime. Nelson explains that "low-fiber, high-sugar snacks before bed can cause a spike and then a drop in blood sugar." These irregular blood sugar levels can disrupt your sleep in multiple ways, making it hard for you get deep rest.
Try not to eat high-sugar snacks before bed.
LordHenriVoton/Getty Images
3. Don't overdo late-night indulgences
"Eating large amounts of any type of food too close to bedtime will probably affect your sleep, especially if it's high in sugar or fat. On the flip side, if you go to bed hungry that might also negatively impact your sleep," Nelson said
Life happens, and sometimes you need a midnight snack to avoid falling asleep with your stomach growling. Nelson advises eating something that's small, high in fiber and pairing it with protein "to keep your blood sugar from spiking and to keep you full until morning." She adds, "Try a banana with peanut butter or a handful of berries with yogurt."
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
If you live in an area where temperatures dip below the freezing point, it's important to prepare for cold weather and take preventive steps to keep your pipes from bursting.
Burst pipes are not only frustrating, but they're also expensive. Depending on the severity of the problem, unfreezing and fixing burst pipes can cost more than $1,000. Fortunately, there are several simple strategies you can adopt to avoid this issue. Below, we've included six tips to help your pipes stay freeze-free this winter.
1. Cover exposed pipes
When your water supply pipes are exposed, they're more susceptible to freezing and bursting -- especially if they're located along exterior walls or in unheated spaces like your basement or attic. To prevent this, it's a good idea to protect your pipes with insulation.
Covering your exposed plumbing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to prevent burst pipes. Your local hardware store will have several different materials that you can use to insulate your pipes, including foam and fiberglass insulation. You can even use newspaper to cover your exposed pipes if you live in a place where freezing temperatures only happen on occasion.
2. Insulate unheated areas
When you have plumbing running through an unheated basement, attic, garage or crawl space, the pipes don't get as much warmth as they would in a heated bedroom or living room. By insulating the unheated areas in your home, your pipes will stay warmer and be less likely to burst. Plus, well-insulated homes contain heat more effectively, which can save you money on winter heating bills.
If you're the DIY type, you should be able to add insulation on your own. Otherwise, you can hire a professional to do it for you. Either way, it's a cost-effective and energy-efficient way to protect your pipes and keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
Jon Skillings/CNET
3. Keep a tap running on cold days
You might be surprised to find out that something as simple as running a tap can help prevent frozen pipes. But in reality, it's one of the most effective things you can do. You don't need to leave your tap running at full blast, but make sure you've at least got a slow drip.
For the best results, choose the faucet that's furthest away from your water source. Doing this will force the water to run through a large portion of your plumbing system, keeping it active and less likely to freeze. Similarly, if you have any taps that are served by exposed pipes, it's a good idea to keep them trickling as well.
4. Open bathroom and kitchen cabinet doors
Another small (but useful) strategy to prevent burst pipes is to open the cabinet doors under your kitchen and bathroom sinks. By doing so, the heated air from your home will start to circulate beneath your cabinets and warm up your pipes.
It's particularly important to open your cabinet doors if they're located along an exterior wall of your home. As you might expect, pipes in these areas are more likely to freeze since they're closer to the cold outdoors.
5. Don't adjust your thermostat
You may be familiar with the Department of Energy's recommendation to adjust your thermostat during the winter to save energy, but that guidance doesn't apply during a cold snap.
Instead, you should keep your thermostat at a constant temperature throughout the day and night. Doing this will help your pipes stay warmer, making them less likely to freeze and burst. Plus, maintaining a steady temperature will put less stress on your furnace, which is important during periods of extreme cold.
6. Seal leaks and drafty areas
Our final tip to prevent burst pipes this winter is to patch up drafty areas in your home. When you have gaps or leaks between the inside and outside of your home, it's possible for cold air to come in, lower the temperature around your plumbing and cause your pipes to burst.
The good news: it's easy to seal these leaks. Get started by taking a quick walk around your house and looking for any places where air could sneak in, including window and door frames, electrical wiring and dryer vents. Once you've identified the problem areas, use insulation or caulk to seal them up.
The bottom line
Even if home maintenance isn't your strong suit, you should be able to tackle all of these repairs in a single weekend. It may seem inconvenient, but making these minor upgrades is a small commitment that can prevent serious headaches and expensive repairs in the future.
But this is not the end. There's still one entire season to come. That might be bad news for the kids who have to prepare to save Hawkins -- or what's left of it. But it's good news for those of us who just can't give up on Steve "The Hair" Harrington and the rest of this engaging crew.
For more on Stranger Things season 4 volume 2, dive into the Easter eggs, links to previous seasons and character arcs for the cast in our in-depth episode 8 recap and episode 9 season finale recap. If you've burned through season 4, here's what we know about the upcoming fifth and final season. We'll add to this as news is released.
Netflix
When will Stranger Things' final season be released?
This is a bigger mystery than what exactly Erica found under Lucas' bed. There was a year between the first two seasons, and then we had to wait two years for season three, and another two for season four. (This explains why the kids are growing up so fast -- see our photo gallery to marvel at the differences.) The Duffer brothers flat-out told Variety that the wait shouldn't be as long this time, but also, they haven't started filming yet. So we'd estimate a year and a half, which would put the show in early 2024. (David Harbour, who plays Hopper, is guessing mid-2024.)
What's this about a time jump?
Like we said, the kids are getting older. Millie Bobby Brown, who plays 11, is 18 now, and Joe Keery, who plays Steve, is 30. Each season has jumped ahead a year, which would push the final season to 1987. But if the show jumped more than one year, the younger kids might be able to catch up to their actual ages -- say the show picked up as they're about to graduate from Hawkins.
The Duffer brothers, the show's creators, have confirmed a time jump, though they haven't revealed details. The problem, though, is that Hawkins is literally on fire as we faded out of season four, so it seems as if the kids need to jump back into immediate action. That'll be something for the Duffers to work out as they reopen their show's writers' room.
Fewer settings
Season four was kind of all over the place, with Hopper and Joyce mostly in Russia, Eleven starting out in California (we still want revenge on roller-rink meanie Angela), and some of the crew back in Hawkins. The show jumped between settings pretty smoothly, but the Duffers say it will focus on keeping everyone together in Hawkins for the last season.
Will Byers loves Mike
The show started off back in season 1 with Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) getting abducted, and it looks as if the focus could spin back to him. Ross Duffer says Will is "a big part and focus" of the final season. And actor Schnapp told Variety in July 2022 that the rumors are true, his character is gay, and has feelings for best friend Mike, who's in a relationship with Eleven.
"Now it's 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike," Schnapp said.
And everything Will does is made more difficult by the fact that he's still apparently able to feel a connection to Vecna.
Eddie and Max
New character Eddie Munson sacrificed himself in season four, and the Duffers have assured fans that the meaningful death is real. It's possible actor Joseph Quinn could show up in a flashback (although Alexei didn't get to do that), but the character won't be an active part of the final season.
It's different for Max Mayfield, who's been a strong part of the show since the second season. Max ended the fourth season in the hospital, as Vecna tried to kill her in the same horrific bone-breaking, eye-gouging way he killed others before her. She's still alive, but not in great shape, and lingers in a coma. There just doesn't feel like any way the Duffers will kill off Max, though -- in fact, maybe that time jump will help her bones (and brain) heal.
Don't expect another 'Running Up That Hill'
Kate Bush's 1985 song Running Up That Hill was featured prominently in the fourth season -- sending the decades-old song charting around the world. But don't expect that the Duffers will just pick another '80s song for a season 5 boost.
"I'm already getting asked that question, it's like, 'What song are [you] going to do in Season 5?'" Matt Duffer said in an interview with Collider. "I'm like, 'We're not going to do that again.' Because if we do it, it will fail." Yeah, it likely would. Lightning is notoriously hard to bottle and, alas, there's only one Kate Bush.
Finale will be long again
The season four finale was more than two hours long. Season five's finale will be, too, though not quite as long, the Duffers say. But it will be moving fast. They note that season five will jump right into action, and joke that the finale will contain "eight endings." Get ready to block off some serious viewing time come 2024.
And then a spinoff?
The Duffers teased their fans with a letter saying, "There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of 'Stranger Things'; new mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes."
And they confirmed to Variety that "we do have an idea for a spinoff that we're super excited about." The creators say they haven't revealed the idea yet, even to Netflix, and they think everyone will be surprised. But they also said that actor Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, correctly guessed at the spinoff topic. So unless someone can get Finn to cough up the secret, we'll have to wait on that.
Ford Shelby Mustang GT500KR returns in royal glory with over 900 hp
Ford Shelby Mustang GT500KR returns in royal glory with over 900 hp
All rise for the king. The Ford Shelby GT500KR is back, and the King of the Road packs over 900 horsepower as a fitting gift to mark Shelby American's 60th anniversary of fast cars. Shelby announced the car's return on Wednesday, but these won't all be brand-new cars from the factory.
Instead, Shelby will open the GT500KR conversion for 2020-2022 model year Ford Shelby GT500 models. New GT500 buyers can immediately send their car to Las Vegas for the KR goods, or current GT500 owners can fight for one of the very limited spots to have their car turned into a GT500KR. Shelby only plans 225 KR packages, and 160 of them will be for the US.
Aside from the massive power boost, the folks at Shelby fit the GT500KR with a carbon-fiber hood, unique suspension tuning, new wheels and tires, and special badges. Those with a 2022 model will also get special anniversary badges to further mark the company's milestone.
The first car will be auctioned off for charity at Barrett-Jackson's Scottsdale event this coming January, and after that, Shelby will begin taking orders for the car in February.
Dusty NASA Mars Lander Snaps What Will Likely Be Its Final Selfie
Dusty NASA Mars Lander Snaps What Will Likely Be Its Final Selfie
This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.
Mars selfies are an entire category of image. They provide mission teams back on Earth with a good look at the hardware, but they're also a way to help space fans feel connected to those distant explorers on the red planet. NASA's InSight lander has sent back what will probably be its final self-portrait, one last look at a brave machine during its end days.
On Monday, NASA JPL tweeted a GIF dancing between InSight's first selfie in December 2018 and its most recent one. It highlights just how much dust is now covering the lander. JPL described it as "what is likely to be its final selfie."
The image comes from April 24 and is a mosaic of snaps taken by a camera mounted on the lander's robotic arm. The arm is scheduled to be placed into a "retirement pose" this month.
Due to a thick layer of dust on its solar panels, InSight is having to ration energy, and the team is prioritizing its seismometer to listen for marsquakes. With the dust issue worsening, InSight is expected to conclude its mission by the end of this year. JPL even named the photo in the release as "InSight's Final Selfie."
It's hard to say goodbye to a mission you've spent years following, but InSight has delivered on its promise to illuminate the interior of Mars. Not everything worked as planned, but its data on marsquakes and the makeup of the red planet's innards has been enlightening for researchers who are studying rocky planets like Mars and Earth.
A dust-covered selfie is a fitting souvenir of InSight's valuable time on Mars.
Pixel 6 event recap: Android 12's release, Tensor chip, 5G and more
Pixel 6 event recap: Android 12's release, Tensor chip, 5G and more
Mike Sorrentino
Senior Editor
Mike Sorrentino is a Senior Editor for Mobile, covering phones, texting apps and smartwatches -- obsessing about how we can make the most of them. Mike also keeps an eye out on the movie and toy industry, and outside of work enjoys biking and pizza making.
