FoodNoms

This is a digital graphic featuring an app icon set against a wavy brown and white abstract background. The app icon is bright orange with the image of a bar chart that transitions into a fork on the right side, symbolizing a focus on food, nutrition, or dining metrics.

Growing up, I was a jock who was secretly a nerd. I played sports year-round and even conned my way into having an independent study gym class my senior year.

That level of physical activity plus a teenage metabolism meant that there would be no consequences for having a three-course cheesecake meal at The Cheesecake Factory with my friends.

Unfortunately, after my athletic career ended and my metabolism changed, my eating habits didn’t, and I gained approximately 50 pounds over the next 15-ish years.

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Dark Noise

This image shows a digital icon which is a stylized representation of a sound wave pattern within a circle, centered on a purple square with rounded corners. The icon is set against a background featuring abstract purple and black shapes with dynamic, flowing lines. The color scheme is predominantly purple with black accents, conveying a sense of modernity and digital technology.

Putting on some headphones is a pretty universal sign to others that you’re working, or at least that you don’t want to be disturbed. But what do you play in said headphones when you’re trying to focus?

If I am doing chores around the house or running errands, I am probably listening to a podcast. If I am working out, probably some combination of 80’s power ballads and shitty pop music. But if I am working, recently I have been listening to noise, not music.

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Backblaze

If you have a computer, you have a ticking time bomb. Some computers last decades before they have a catastrophic failure, some barely make their way out of the box. Whichever is the case, your computer will eventually fail and you will lose all of the data on that device. This outcome is guaranteed no matter who makes the computer, only the timeline is unknown. This means that you must prepare. 

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Dropbox

A long time ago I downloaded an app for my iPod touch (my phone was an LG Voyager at the time) to help me take attendance for the class I was long term subbing for. The app was cool at the time and is out of development now, but there was an option in the settings for that app to sync data via Dropbox. I had never heard of Dropbox before so I signed up for an account and that was that. Dropbox is now the very first app I install on a new device, I rely on Dropbox to save all of the photos and videos that my family creates, and most of the apps I rely on every day use Dropbox to function.   

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Square Cash

Ever since I was I kid, I have been a fan of heist movies. To this day, I will argue that The Usual Suspects has the best plot twist of any movie of all time. But there are only so many The Usual Suspect caliber movies out there, so to fill the void I had to slum it a bit with lower quality heist movies, enter Swordfish, The Italian Job, and the like.

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