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Your Twitter Feed Sucks Now. These Free Add-Ons Can Help

Your Twitter Feed Sucks Now. These Free Add-Ons Can Help

The first is to make sure you’re using the Following tab instead of For You. This tab is just tweets from the people you follow, so it doesn’t artificially favor Twitter Blue subscribers. You could also try blocking all retweets if you want to clean things up a little more.

If that’s not enough, you could try TweetDeck, the power user’s version of Twitter. This tool doesn’t have a For You page or any algorithmic sorting, meaning Twitter Blue users aren’t artificially boosted on it. TweetDeck is the one part of Twitter that’s completely untouched by the recent changes there, and I hope this doesn’t change. (So please, no one tell Elon Musk that TweetDeck still exists.)

Another cool extension, if you miss seeing legacy checkmarks, is Eight Dollars. Right now blue checkmarks only show up if someone is paying for Blue, meaning most people who had a checkmark prior to April 20, 2023 no longer have one. Eight Dollars can show you which users were verified before legacy verified checkmarks were removed, which is useful if you trusted the old system.

There’s a cat and mouse element to all of this, of course. Twitter’s current regime really, really wants to turn Blue checkmarks into sellable status symbols and any tool that diminishes the visibility of Blue subscribers cuts against that goal. They’re going to try to find a way to break this, and all similar, tools. For now, though, they work—use them while you can. 

Or you could just abandon your Twitter account, set up a public archive of your tweets, and learn how to get started on Mastodon or Bluesky. Up to you. 

11 Best Retro Game Consoles (2023): Evercade, Polymega, Analogue Pocket, and Controllers

11 Best Retro Game Consoles (2023): Evercade, Polymega, Analogue Pocket, and Controllers

It’s a shame that two of the best retro gaming consoles in recent years, the NES Classic Mini and the SNES Classic Mini, have been discontinued. Both feature great designs with a miniaturized look that’s true to the originals, silky performance, and strong game lineups of Nintendo’s greatest hits. You can still buy them online (usually from third-party resellers), but prices are seriously inflated. The SNES Classic Mini, for example, was $80 at launch, but a reseller has it for $300 on Amazon right now. You might have better luck buying one used.

Nintendo fans keen on some classic gaming action might be better served by snagging a Switch and buying a Nintendo Switch Online membership ($20 for a year) to access more than 100 NES and SNES titles (here’s the full list). Add the Expansion Pack ($50 for a year) and you can get these N64 games too. If you’re craving some old-school pocket-sized Nintendo fun, check out the revived Game & Watch ($50) line. They are limited to a couple of games each, but when those games are Super Mario or Zelda titles, that can be enough for hours of fun.

The Analogue Mega SG ($200) (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is expensive, and it doesn’t come with any games or controllers (they cost $25 apiece). But it can play old Sega Genesis cartridges, so it’s a solid choice if you have a box of them in the basement. Thanks to an FPGA chip, this console runs the original games just as you remember them.

There are plenty of classic arcade games available on PlayStation 4 or 5. If you opt for a PS Plus Premium subscription ($18 for a month or $120 for a year), you get the Classics Catalog, packed with old PlayStation games.

The Xbox Series X|S boasts the best backward compatibility, as Microsoft’s newest consoles can play Xbox One, Xbox 360, and original Xbox titles. You can also find classic titles included in our favorite gaming subscription, the excellent Xbox Game Pass Ultimate ($15 per month).

If you have Valve’s Steam Deck, check out the comprehensive EmuDeck to emulate a wide variety of old systems in style.

PC gamers also have an enormous choice of emulators. I like RetroArch because it emulates multiple systems, but if you have a favorite old console and want to get close to that original experience, you can likely find a tailor-made emulator to scratch that itch.

Master and Dynamic MH40 Review: Beautiful Austerity

Master and Dynamic MH40 Review: Beautiful Austerity

Style, build quality, and sound. These are the core essentials in the new MH40, Master and Dynamic’s latest update of a classic that goes back to the New York City-based audio brand’s early days as a market disrupter in 2014.

It’s not a lavish formula for a pair of $400 wireless headphones in 2023, especially compared to models loaded with modern features like Sony’s WH-1000XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). But these aren’t your average pair. With a dead-gorgeous design built from elements like anodized aluminum, lambskin, and titanium, the MH40 look and feel different than the monolithic plastic shells of most rivals. Their obstinate minimalism in the face of the current trend is almost freeing, especially since the trade-off for loads of features is brilliant sound and construction designed to last.

The MH40 skip a lot of extras, but their biggest transgression is a lack of noise canceling or transparency mode, which are all but prerequisites at this price. You can get both features in M&D’s step-up pair, the MW75 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), for $200 more. The price and lack of ANC means that the MH40 wouldn’t be my first choice for most folks, but the headphones’ sterling sound and head-turning style could be hard to pass up for those with style who don’t want noise canceling, or who simply are willing to pay for premium headphones that stand out from the crowd.

Really, Ridiculously Good Looking

Master Dynamic MH40 headphones

Photograph: Master & Dynamic

Pulling the MH40 from the box, you can’t help but smile. They’re just beautiful cans, especially in our review unit’s burnt-brown leather (they’re also available in four other colors, including solid black). The latticed exterior screens reflect the light like ripples on a sunlit lake. The metal chassis feels at once elegant and robust, thanks to solid base materials matched by a speckled aluminum finish.

Polished industrial posts at the sides provide smooth action and numbered settings for the ear cups as you slide them in place. Even the lambskin-cloaked pads feel classy, set on magnets for easy removal and replacement. The pads also offer one of the MH40’s best attributes: good noise isolation that kills a lot of sound around you when you add a bit of music. I can’t hear my keystrokes as I type this review, for instance. That’s a great thing for a pair that lack noise canceling.

The headphones are fairly comfortable, thanks to plenty of memory foam along the ear cups, and with their quality leather skins, they should become softer and more tailored to your head as they wear in. They aren’t as comfy as Sony’s older WH-1000XM4 or new XM5, at least not yet, but few headphones are. My biggest complaint is the dearth of padding on top, which can wear on your head after a few hours. But the MH40’s light weight (around 280 grams) keeps this mostly in check.

Best Hiking Boots (2023): Walking Shoes, Trails, Backpacking

Best Hiking Boots (2023): Walking Shoes, Trails, Backpacking

In the traditional world of hiking boots, practicality is king, with solid ankle support and a nice bit of leather keeping your feet dry and ankles intact as you head for the hills. Things are changing fast, though, with the modern technology found in running shoes being co-opted into walking boots and trail shoes, helping to reduce weight while increasing comfort, speed, and performance.

As a result, there are now hundreds of pairs to choose from, including tried-and-tested traditional leather clodhoppers, ultralight trail running sneakers, and a whole host of hybrid designs, like approach shoes for scrambling and pillowy soft designs for epic through-hikes and all-year adventures.

For more of WIRED’s outdoor guides, check out our Hiking Gear 101 guide, Best Baselayers, Best Tents, and the Best Rain Jackets.

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Barsys Smart Coaster Review: Not a Reliable Drinking Buddy

Barsys Smart Coaster Review: Not a Reliable Drinking Buddy

A precision scale is a critical tool to have in the kitchen, so why not the bar, too?

Turns out, lots of reasons. On paper, the Barsys Smart Coaster system isn’t a bad idea. Imagine a digital scale (like the Drop) that’s connected via Bluetooth to an app on your phone that tells you what ingredients to pour into a glass sitting atop it. And that’s exactly how Barsys works. Want to make a margarita? Pour in tequila until the base of the lighted coaster turns green. Then triple sec until you get another green light. Then lime juice. Then simple syrup. For the novice mixologist, all they need to do is wait until the coaster says “when” each time, and the drink is done.

Well, sort of. There are plenty of problems with Barsys in both concept and execution to the point where it doesn’t really work well, even as a novelty item.

First, the Barsys may be a scale, but it doesn’t carry any kind of readout aside from colored lights. The scale starts off white, then gradually becomes more and more blue as you add an ingredient specified by your selected recipe. Finally it flashes and turns green, moving you on to the next ingredient and starting the process over. The problem is that if you don’t know how much of an ingredient you need to pour in (and the app doesn’t tell you during mixing), you can either find yourself adding ingredients by the drop—which takes forever—or sloshing in booze and blowing right past the “stop” notification. If you’re the kind of freewheeling home bartender that isn’t hyper-concerned with getting things just so, this may not be a big deal. But in that case, it’s far easier to just estimate everything as you splash the ingredients into a shaker willy-nilly and call it close enough.

Barsys Smart Coaster lit up green with finished drink resting on top

Photograph: Barsys

Another big issue is mixing. While Barsys is available with an optional mixer unit—a plastic glass with an electromagnetic stirring unit in the base—it’s not the most powerful way to blend a drink. It’s fine for stirring a martini, but if you really want to shake the hell out of that margarita, you’ll need to put some of your own muscle into it (via a separate shaker). Barsys is vague about when and whether to put ice into the mixer during recipe-building. The motor is able to handle a bit of ice, but you can’t fill the mixer to the brim and get any traction. Any ice you do use will need to be added at the beginning (when the empty mixer is initially weighed) or the end, never the middle, as that will throw off the liquid weight measurements. For recipes that require dry shaking—such as sours made with egg white—and then a second shake with ice, the Barsys is particularly ill-suited. It’s also worth noting that the system is really designed to produce only one drink at a time.