How to Identify and Resist Manipulative Sales Pitches

Stores everywhere are competing for your hard-earned money (or easily acquired credit) this holiday shopping season, and they're pulling out every sales pitch they know. Here's how to identify some of the most manipulative and resist them.
How to Identify and Resist Manipulative Sales Pitches

The Hacker’s Guide to Tea

Coffee gets a lot of attention, but if tea's more your style, tea guru Tony Gebely offers this guide to understanding and brewing better tea—discussing the process, the kinds, and the care necessary to cultivate a great taste for tea.
The Hacker’s Guide to Tea

Australian Women’s Weekly in National Library of Australia Digital Archive

Hat tip to PC World Australia for the pointer to the new digital archive of Australian Women’s Weekly, brought to you by the National Library of Australia. This archive spans 10 June 1933 to 15 December 1982, which is 2500 issues and 220,000 pages, totaling about 275,000 articles. That’s not small, but I did find some pages that were listed in the search engine but weren’t viewable yet. You can do a keyword search at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/title/112.
Australian Women’s Weekly in National Library of Australia Digital Archive

Curing Warts, Removing Splinters, and 19 Other Bizarre Uses for Banana Peels

It all started with a rumor that banana peels could be used to polish silver and a bet among friends that it couldn’t. In trying to discover if there is any legitimacy to the silver-polishing properties of banana peels, I found dozens of other unusual applications for them, including splinter removal and wart treatments.
Curing Warts, Removing Splinters, and 19 Other Bizarre Uses for Banana Peels

Curing Warts, Removing Splinters, and 19 Other Bizarre Uses for Banana Peels | Wise Bread

It all started with a rumor that banana peels could be used to polish silver and a bet among friends that it couldn’t. In trying to discover if there is any legitimacy to the silver-polishing properties of banana peels, I found dozens of other unusual applications for them, including splinter removal and wart treatments.
Curing Warts, Removing Splinters, and 19 Other Bizarre Uses for Banana Peels

Short Sharp Science: Looking down on the tallest structure ever built

The 828 metre Burj Khalifa skyscraper towers above downtown Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The no doubt soon-to-be iconic image taken earlier this year by GeoEye 1, the highest resolution satellite in operation, opens the 2011 calendar of parent company GeoEye.
Short Sharp Science: Looking down on the tallest structure ever built

Practice Eye Contact to Generate "Reality Distortion Field" Charisma

Some people, like Bill Clinton and Steve Jobs, have undeniable charisma that even their most ardent detractors are forced to acknowledge. Master the art of eye contact and personal space management to create "Reality Distortion Field" level charisma.
Practice Eye Contact to Generate "Reality Distortion Field" Charisma

How to Find the Person behind an Email Address - Reverse Email Search

You get an email from a person with whom you have never interacted before and therefore, before you reply to that message, you would like to know something more about him or her. How do you do this without directly asking the other person?
How to Find the Person behind an Email Address - Reverse Email Search

Don’t Sleep, Prevent Standby, Hibernate, Shutdown In Windows

The power configuration in Windows determines if the operating system initiates a system state change. This can be an automatic shutdown, a switch to standby mode, hibernation or changes that have less of an impact like turning off the computer monitor.
Don’t Sleep, Prevent Standby, Hibernate, Shutdown In Windows

Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Cheesy Action Movie Edition

This Friday, we’re taking the term “weekend warriors” quite seriously. Today’s YouTube Roundup theme is “Cheesy Action Sequences,” curated by everyone’s favorite former invalid, The Fully Sick Rapper.
NOTE: If cheesy violence — or shouting men — offend you, you may want to skip this roundup.
Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Cheesy Action Movie Edition

9 Notable Tech Flops That Live in Infamy

Not every gadget is destined for greatness. Despite the hype before launch, or the promise of how a shiny new device will change your life, there are some gizmos that just don’t cut it.
9 Notable Tech Flops That Live in Infamy

Win a Coin Toss by Volunteering to Flip the Coin

The person flipping the coin has a significantly higher chance to calling the outcome. Stack the odds in your favor by volunteering to be the flipper.
Win a Coin Toss by Volunteering to Flip the Coin

Top 10 Holiday Travel Tips and Tricks

Traveling in general isn't always fun, but it's especially miserable during the holidays. Long lines, long drives to the airport, and frequent delays make the process hard to endure. Here are our top ten tips and tricks for surviving holiday travel.
Top 10 Holiday Travel Tips and Tricks

Use Toothpaste to Fix Car Body and Headlight Scratches

Toothpaste: it restores old sneakers, de-stains MacBooks, un-clouds drinking glasses, and, it seems, heals whatever minor scratches ail your car, whether on the body, or the problematic kind that reduce your headlights' brightness.
Use Toothpaste to Fix Car Body and Headlight Scratches

Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 24/2010

The latest issue of new Family Friendly sites listed on The Black Stump.
Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 24/2010

Jet Lag May Cause Long-Term Memory and Learning Problems

Any frequent long-distance flier can tell you about what jet lag does to their energy, sleep, and awareness functions. But scientists who exposed hamsters to frequent jet-lag-like conditions—equivalent to flying from New York to Paris every three days—found that it affected neuron birth in the hippocampus, and likely the related problems hamsters had with finding desirable rooms in a maze and other memory tasks.
Jet Lag May Cause Long-Term Memory and Learning Problems

5 Fresh Places to Find Great Online Video

Fortunately, more and more sites and services are stepping up to help sift through the vast, expansive wasteland of online video. Here are five of Mashable's favorite sites for not just finding the goods, but also making it easy to share and exchange videos with friends and family members.
5 Fresh Places to Find Great Online Video

Backup Your PC Securely With FBackup

Are you searching for a back up program which is safe, user friendly and free at the same time? If yes, then your search may end here. Usually users don’t go for backup programs, since they have a fear in mind regarding the loss or damage of important data stored in the PC.
Backup Your PC Securely With FBackup

Yahoo! Labs and Zombies

Interested in game theory, advanced mathematics, classical economics, and budget allocation problems? No?
Let’s try again. Are you interested in commanding a legion of Zombie warriors in a pitched battle against your friends and random people online?
Yahoo! Labs and Zombies

Internet Filter Delayed Until At Least 2013

We’ve known since mid-year that the ludicrous Internet filter concept was on the backburner pending a classification review. Based on current plans, that means there’ll probably be no chance to introduce it before 2013.
Internet Filter Delayed Until At Least 2013