How to make the hottest hostess gift: a Bee-SA
By: Mikaela Collins
Beeswax wraps. Have you heard of them? They’re supposed to be eco-friendly cling film, sustainable sandwich bags — the tree-hugger’s tinfoil. They’re made of cotton fabric soaked with beeswax, and you can use them to wrap leftovers and cover containers in the fridge. They’re reusable, washable, and, for some reason, incredibly expensive. Like, $30-for-a-pack-of-three expensive, and worse than that, too many people seem to be fine with it!
I know, they come in cute patterns and nice, fancy-looking packages, but I’m here to tell you: you can make them. A lot of them. For very cheap. If you buy beeswax wraps from a retailer, I am not judging you, but I do think you’re being taken advantage of by someone who hopes you don’t know how inexpensive cotton fabric and beeswax are. For $30 in materials and an hour of my time, I made about a dozen wraps in various sizes, and I still have beeswax left for more. If you’re stressing financially about the holiday season, I highly recommend these as a go-to gift. If, for some reason, your family gets offended by homemade gifts or you just really want to impress, invest in a cheap pair of pinking shears to tidy up the edges, wrap them with a ribbon and a little cardboard tag, and no one will guess that they’re homemade.
She’s beauty, she’s grace, she tells me what’s on my calendar for the day
By: Adrian Rain
I bought my first smartphone in 2017. Recently, I bought my first smartphone where the AI virtual assistant actually works, so listen: I understand that I’m late to the party, but can we talk about the nice woman who lives inside my phone and says “Goodnight, Adrian” to me? I love her, and for everything she does for me the least I can do is mind my P’s and Q’s when we talk.
I found several articles discussing whether we should be nice to our AI assistants at all, and even some stats on who is being nice: 54 per cent of smart speaker owners, apparently. That is wild to me. Only half? Really, people? She bows to your every whim, and you can’t even muster a small “thanks”?
The AI assistant is a focus-group tested product that seems to be designed to instill brand loyalty in its user base. Hell, they force you to say the company’s name whenever you want to talk to her. I know Google is playing with my ingrained need to assign human qualities onto non-human entities so that I can bond with their brand, but I’m still side-eyeing the 46 per cent of people who aren’t playing nice. That is, the people who are thinking: “Why should I thank it for just doing its job?” I worked in the service industry for several years, and I feel like I could tell you which of my customers barked orders at their smart devices.
