Here’s How Long Food Can Last in the Pantry, Refrigerator and Freezer

I'm one of those people who never takes anything anyone says at face value but absolutely swears by expiration dates. Ew the milk expired today?! Eat my cereal dry. The bread smells fine but it says it's not BEST BY today anymore. Go get a sandwich at the deli. My blind adherence to those labels is idiotic but I know how to get better now: follow the rough estimate of this infographic that shows the shelf life of food in the pantry, fridge and freezer.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm going from following one piece of paper to following a bunch of pixels. It's not in any way more scientific! But getting the rough idea of how long food lasts is a good thing (in a More You Know way). Like I never knew potatoes and lettuce shouldn't be put in the freezer. Or that honey lasts FOREVER (makes sense though). Or that ketchup 'only' lasts a year, I'm pretty sure I broke that rule many times over.

The infographic was made by Visual.ly and used advice from the USDA, FDA and others. It's going to be my new sworn source for keeping food around. [Visual.ly]

Apple Is Deleting iCloud Emails That Have the Phrase ‘Barely Legal Teen’ in Them

Something really weird is happening to iCloud emails. It turns out, Apple is straight up deleting emails sent from iCloud email accounts that have the phrase "barely legal teen" in them. Like, if you sent out an email that included that phrase in the body of the message, it would never be sent to the person. Huh?

Macworld UK spotted the weird behavior and tested it out with the phrase, ""My friend's son is already allowed to drive his high-powered car. It's ridiculous. He's a barely legal teenage driver? What on earth is John thinking." One email was sent just like that. It was never delivered. The other email amended the "a barely legal teenage" to "barely a legal teenage" and was successfully sent. The test was repeated with other emails that included the phrase "barely legal teen" and every time, the email was deleted and never sent.

Barely legal teen, if you needed a reminder on where the phrase comes from (which I'm sure you don't but are going to make me describe it anyway), is a common description for porn that features young performers who look like they've just become 'legal' (or 18).

So what's causing this overaggressive behavior from Apple? Apple's notorious anti-porn stance? Some weird quirk in the code? Apple told Macworld:

"Occasionally, automated spam filters may incorrectly block legitimate email," an Apple spokesperson said. "If the customer feels that a legitimate message is blocked, we encourage customers to report it to AppleCare."

What doesn't exactly add up in that explanation is that these "barely legal teen" emails never even hit the spam box of the recipient. They're just never sent because Apple nips them in the bud. Deleting emails like that, I think, is called censoring. [Macworld UK via VentureBeat]

Google Says the Next Motorola Products Aren’t Really ‘Wow’ Impressive

When Google bought Motorola, a lot of people thought it would mark the beginning of an onslaught of awesome Motorola Android phones. It didn't really happen like that. In fact, it looks like it's getting worse. Google just described Motorola's upcoming products as "not really to the standards that what Google would say is wow—innovative, transformative." That's, um, honest.

Google CFO Patrick Pichette spoke at Morgan Stanley's Technology Conference and pretty much gave Motorola the opposite of a vote of confidence. Pichette, who has a growing history of knocking Motorola down, just recently said that Google had "inherited a 12-18 month product pipeline" that the company is "still working through." The kind of words Pichette uses to describe Motorola is the same comments you'd describe anything that's dragging down your life but tough to ditch (cable companies, leaky faucets, plateaued relationships, etc). Basically, whatever Motorola is doing right now, it's not enough for Google.

So even though Motorola has made some half-decent phones recently, it's probably better to stay away until, you know, the freaking company that owns Motorola believes in its products. [The Verge]

Your Phone’s Low Battery Warnings Should Look Like These Hilarious Notifications

Because batteries enjoy dying so much when we really need that last little bit of juice, low battery warnings really should be more animated than the plain "20% of battery remaining". I don't know how many times I've ignored that message. But if the alert made fun of me and said something like, "Oh I'll just charge it tonight" You idiot, then my God I would listen to it so much more.

College Humor came up with a few phrases that a desperate and agressive low battery warning would say to you and I want this on my phone now. Even if this feature took more battery to do, I would reward my phone with an actual charging cable treat as opposed to running the vanilla message dead dead dead. Plus, that stupid 10% warning just has no compassion. The battery is going to die anyway, might as well make me laugh. [College Humor]

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Synesthetic Locked

Not everybody needs LSD to see sound and hear smells, people with a neurological condition known as Synesthesia experience a sort of "cross-talk" between their senses. Director Oscar Lopez Rocha is one such synesthete. He shares what he sees in Synesthetic Locked.

This Wonderful Guy Will Paint Whatever Picture You Ask For in MS Paint

If you want a picture of a dinosaur drawing people in an art class. Jim'll paint it for you in MS Paint. If you want a picture of Moby throwing ninja stars at a 'melancholic' badger wearing specific clothing in a specific situation. Jim'll paint it for you in MS Paint. Jim will basically paint you anything in MS Paint and they will always be incredible.

Jim, the wonderful artist behind this art project, fields ridiculous art requests from strangers and makes those descriptions come true in MS Paint. He doesn't use tablets, he doesn't touch anything up—it's just him and the funniest art medium of the 90's creating imaginative pieces that'll tickle your brain. Check out his work here.
The request: Please paint me the original Power Rangers MegaZord struggling to find space on a commuter train whilst watching ‘the Thick of it' on his iPad.

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The request: Please paint me a picture of Brian Blessed riding a Henry hoover alongside D'n'B DJ Goldie on a Dyson. They are racing on the Mario kart level rainbow road and are both drunk on white ace cider.

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I told you they were incredible. Jim obviously can't paint every single picture request but he does promise to consider them all. Get specific! Get weird! Get funny! Jim'll paint it for ya. [Jim'll Paint It via Laughing Squid

The Most and Least Repairable Tablets on the Market

The world is awash with tablets, but if you're a nerd who likes to tinker, it's important that you buy one that isn't too tricky to take apart, repair and upgrade. Fortunately, iFixit has released a list which ranks tablets according to their repairability.

Whenever iFixit tears apart a new piece of hardware, it notes how easy it is to strip and rebuild. This table summarizes that neatly. iFixit explains its scoring criteria:

A device with a perfect score will be relatively inexpensive to repair because it is easy to disassemble and has a service manual available. Points are docked based on the difficulty of opening the device, the types of fasteners found inside, and the complexity involved in replacing major components. Points are awarded for upgradability, use of non-proprietary tools for servicing, and component modularity.

The results? Those that want to get their hands dirty would be best served by giving the Surface Pro and the iPad mini a wide berth. Instead, they should hunt out a Dell XPS 10 or a humble Kindle Fire, which is also fairly hack-friendly to boot. Check out the full list by clicking on the image below or over at iFixit. [iFixit]

Pentagon’s Scariest Robot Can Now Hurl Cinder Blocks Your Way

Boston Dynamic's Big Dog was already one of the most advanced—and terrifying!—robots on the planet. Well, it just got scarier, because now it can accurately throw cinder blocks at you while on the march.

The robot, built by Army Research Laboratory Boston Dynamics, is designed to tramp across uneven terrain, and it does a good job of it. But now it's got an extra arm, which it can use to pick things up.

But it's not that straightforward: the robot coordinates the arm's movement with its legs and torso to really put its back into throwing objects, like the cinder block in this video. You don't want to get in the way. [Boston Dynamics]

Vint Cerf Dreams of an Internet That Connects Humans to Animals—and Aliens

If it weren't for the fact that Vint Cerf was the grandaddy of the internet, people might be pointing and laughing at him. In a TED discussion panel last night, about how technology is being used to communicate with animals, Cerf spoke freely about an internet that connects humans with animals and aliens.

But given his background, he's probably not far off the mark. From a TED blog post about the discussion panel, it appears Cerf uttered the following:

"Forty years ago we wrote the script of the internet. Thirty years ago we turned it on. We thought we were building a system to connect computers together. But we quickly learned that it's a system for connecting people.

"What's important about what these people are doing: They're beginning to learn how to communicate with species that are not us, but share a sensory environment. [They're figuring out] what it means to communicate with something that's not a person. I can't wait to see these experiments unfold.

"These interactions with other animals will teach us, ultimately, how we might interact with an alien from another world. I can hardly wait."

Of course, one man's lunacy is another's ambition—but knowing Cerf's track record, it seems likely that he's onto something. In which case, we can hardly wait either. [TED]

Image by Joi under Creative Commons license

The Pope Deserved a Better Leaving Gift Than This Comic Sans Photo Album

Officials at the Vatican were faced with a tough question when the Pope announced his retirement: what do you get God's Rottweiler as a leaving present?

Fortunately that question didn't trouble them for long, because the answer was so very, veryclear to them: his very own virtual photograph album! And, ladies and gentlemen, here it is, in all its glory.

Sadly, all the pictures in the world of the ex-Pope leading mass, kissing babies and wearing hats can't hide the fact that it seems like someone actually made it in the early 90s. This thing is a mess of textured backgrounds, comic sans, awful page turns, and a page jump feature that looks like it was coded by a child. Poor Pope; he deserved better than this. [Vatican via Verge via Ernie Smith]

If You’re Blaming Computer Problems on a Virus, You’re Probably Wrong

Next time a computer in your office is broken, chances are someone will blame it on a virus. But let's face it, most computer problems don't stem from viruses; they stem from dumb people.

Of course, it's easier to blame something than it is to understand a problem. That's natural; we all look for scapegoats to make ourselves feel better. It'd just be nice if people learned how to solve their problems rather than blaming them on something else they don't understand. 

This Kid Blew $2,500 on In-Game Purchases in Just 10 Minute

Shameless in-game purchases aimed at kids have been in the new recently. But this five-year-old kid spent more than most: he blew $2,500 on in-game junk in just 10 minutes. That's impressive.

The boy in question is Danny Kitchen. The game is Zombie v Ninja, which is "free" for download on iTunes. When he was playing on his folks' iPad one day, he asked for the iTunes password so he could download game. Danny's parents typed it in, saying they were reassured by the fact that the game was listed as being free, and left him to get on with playing the thing.

Danny then went in-app purchase crazy, buying stacks of the $100 in-game keys and weapon packs, and racking up an enormous credit card bill for his mom. "I was worried and I felt sad," said Danny, when he found out, adding: "I'm banned from the iPad now." Too right.

Apple has agreed to refund the money. While it's nice of Apple to do that, it would be nicer still if it stopped publishers putting abysmal, money-grabbing bundles of $100 crap in games aimed at children. [BBC]