Paystack expands to South Africa seven months after Stripe acquisition

Nigerian fintech startup Paystack has been relatively quiet since it was bought by fintech giant Stripe last October. The deal, worth more than $200 million, caused shockwaves to the African tech ecosystem and offered some form of validation to work done by founders, startups and investors alike.

Today, the payments company, which powers businesses with its payment API and is actively present in Nigeria and Ghana, is announcing its official launch in South Africa.

In 2018 when we reported Paystack’s $8 million Series A (which Stripe also led), it was powering 15% of all online payments in Nigeria. The company had more than 10,000 businesses on its platform and expansion to other African countries was one way it planned to use the money. Ghana was its next stop.

Since expanding to Ghana, Paystack has grown and claims to power 50% of all online payments in Nigeria with around 60,000 customers, including small businesses, larger corporates, fintechs, educational institutions and online betting companies. Some of its customers include MTN, SPAR and UPS, and they use the company’s software to collect payments globally.

The South African launch was preceded by a six-month pilot, which means the project kickstarted a month after Stripe acquired it. Stripe is gearing toward a hotly anticipated IPO and has been aggressively expanding to other markets. Before acquiring Paystack, the company added 17 countries to its platform in 18 months, but none from Africa. Paystack was its meal ticket to the African online commerce market, and CEO Patrick Collison didn’t mince words when talking about the acquisition in October.

“There is an enormous opportunity. In absolute numbers, Africa may be smaller right now than other regions, but online commerce will grow about 30% every year. And even with wider global declines, online shoppers are growing twice as fast. Stripe thinks on a longer time horizon than others because we are an infrastructure company. We are thinking of what the world will look like in 2040-2050,” he said. 

Although Stripe said the $600 million it raised in Series H this March would be used mainly for European expansion, its foray deeper into Africa has kicked off. And while Paystack claims to have had a clear expansion roadmap prior to the acquisition, its relationship with Stripe is accelerating the realization of that pan-African expansion goal.

Now, Africa accounts for three of the 42 countries where Stripe currently has customers today.

“South Africa is one of the continent’s most important markets, and our launch here is a significant milestone in our mission to accelerate commerce across Africa,” said Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade of the expansion. “We’re excited to continue building the financial infrastructure that empowers ambitious businesses in Africa, helps them scale and connects them to global markets.”

The six-month pilot saw Paystack work with different businesses and grow a local team to handle on-the-ground operations. However, unlike Nigeria and Ghana, where Paystack has managed to be a top player, what are the company’s prospects in the South African market where it will face stiff competition from the likes of Yoco and DPO?

“The opportunity for innovation in the South African payment space is far from saturated. Today, for instance, digital payments make up less than half of all transactions in the country,” Abdulrahman Jogbojogbo, product marketer at Paystack said. “So, the presence of competition is not only welcome; it’s encouraged. The more innovative plays there are, the faster it’ll be to realize our goal of having an integrated African market.”

Khadijah Abu, head of product expansion, added that “for many businesses in South Africa, we know that accepting payments online can be cumbersome. Our pilot in South Africa was hyperfocused on removing barriers to entry, eliminating tedious paperwork, providing world-class API documentation to developers, and making it a lot simpler for businesses to accept payments online.”

Many people compare Paystack to Africa’s newest fintech unicorn Flutterwave. Founded a year apart, both companies help businesses accept payments from thousands of businesses. When the latter raised its recent juggernaut $170 million round, it claimed to have 290,000 businesses on its platform. While Flutterwave has been high-flying with its pan-African expansion (it has a presence in 20 African countries), Paystack has adopted a rather scrupulous approach. The company said the reason behind this lies with the peculiarities each African country presents and because each country has different regulations, launching at scale takes time. 

“Our goal isn’t to have a presence in lots of countries, with little regard for service quality. We care deeply that we deliver a stellar end-to-end payment experience in the countries we operate in,” Jogbojogbo continued. “And this takes some time, careful planning and lots of behind-the-scenes, foundational work.”

But being backed by Stripe and armed with millions of dollars, Paystack might need to switch things up eventually. Even as it operates independently, its pan-African vision is equally important to Stripe, and speed will be crucial, even the five-year-old company acknowledges this and said, “its pace of expansion will quicken as it expands into more African countries.”

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The Buck Stops With Mark: Facebook Whistleblower Says Zuckerberg Responsible for System Harming Kids

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen listens to opening statements during a Senate hearing entitled ‘Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower’ on Capitol Hill October 5, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Photo: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen stepped out of the shadows Sunday after months of working secretly with lawyers, journalists and lawmakers to build a case against the company she’d once thought to change from within—but now views as fundamentally threatening to the whole of humanity. Haugen was once against thrust into the spotlight Tuesday as she appeared before a Senate subcommittee to testify about Facebook policies that placed profits before the mental wellbeing of children on its platforms.

Echoing her interview Sunday on 60 Minutes, Haugen said she joined Facebook in 2019 after someone close to her was “radicalized” online. She pursued a job at the company, she said, in an effort to improve internal policies long criticized for amplifying the most politically divisive content in order to generate engagement among its users. Facebook’s acute fixation with driving engagement—which translates into ad dollars, the company’s singular source of income—resulted in system that only serves to amplify “division, extremism, and polarization,” she said, “undermining societies around the world.”

“This is not simply a matter of some social media users being angry or unstable,” said Haugen. “Facebook became a $1 trillion company by paying for its profits with our safety, including the safety of our children. And that is unacceptable.”

Haugen, who holds an MBA from Harvard and previously worked on algorithms at Google, Pinterest, and Yelp, was recruited by Facebook in 2019 as a lead product manager for “civic misinformation,” later working on “counter-espionage” as a member of Facebook’s threat intelligence team. At Facebook, she witnessed the company consistently placing profits above all else—decisions which generated “self-harm” and “self-hate,” she said, among the platform’s youngest users.

At the top of the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on consumer protection, raised the question of whether Facebook has known all along that children were becoming addicted to Instagram, the photo-sharing platform Facebook purchased in 2012. “Many of Facebook’s internal research reports indicates that Facebook has a serious negative harm on a significant portion of teenagers and younger children,” she said.

“Facebook knows that it’s amplification algorithms, things like engagement based rankings on Instagram, can lead children from very innocuous topics… all the way from something innocent like health recipes to anorexia-promoting content, over a very short period of time,” Haugen said, adding that Facebook’s internal definition of “addiction” requires that users be self-identify as having a problem.

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“In the end,” she said, CEO Mark Zuckerberg bears the ultimate responsibility. “There’s no one currently holding Mark accountable.”

Blumenthal last week said his office had written to Zuckerberg in August, asking whether Facebook had ever heard of his platforms having negative effects, such as suicidal thoughts, on children’s and teen’s mental health. The company effectively ducked the question, saying only that it knew of no consensus among experts as to how much “screen time” was unhealthy for kids.

Internal documents amassed by Haugen before departing Facebook in May laid bare the effects of Instagram’s engagement algorithms on teens—young girls, in particular. Leaked to the Wall Street Journal, the documents noted Instagram was responsible for worsening anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts linked to body-image issues among young girls.

Separate materials shared with the Journal revealed that Facebook views children 10-years-old and younger as a “valuable” and “untapped” resource crucial to the company’s “growth.”

As of yet, Facebook has not indicated whether it plans to take legal action against Haugen for leaking company documents to the press, but has said it won’t pursue her for sharing with Senate lawmakers, whom she initially approached this summer.

Facebook, in response, attacked its own research, calling it “exploratory,” and saying its researchers did not rely on any “clinical criterion.” The company, meanwhile, has refused to release the raw data underlying its findings, preferring to annotate documents referenced in the press in an effort to downplay their significance.

“I came forward because I recognized a frightening truth: almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook,” Haugen said in opening remarks. “The company’s leadership keeps vital information from the public, the U.S. government, its shareholders, and governments around the world. The documents I have provided prove that Facebook has repeatedly misled us about what its own research reveals about the safety of children, its role in spreading hateful and polarizing messages, and so much more.”

Haugen went on to say it was typical at Facebook for problems to be understaffed. The threat intelligence team, for example, “could only handle a third of the cases—that we knew about.” The lack of adequate staffing disincentivized the team from improving systems designed to detect issues, which would only create more work the team was not equipped to handle.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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The Out-of-Touch Adults Guide To Kid Culture: What Are Squishmallows?

This week, I’m breaking down some of the biggest youth internet trends in a way even graybeards can grasp, from esoteric financial instruments, to a vast fast-food conspiracy, to a look at some of TikTok’s most notable time travelers.

Why is everyone talking about Dogecoin?

The biggest financial meme this week on the internet is undoubtedly Dogecoin. Pronounced “dohj coin,” this cryptocurrency began in 2013, but unlike Bitcoin and other cryptos, Dogecoin was never meant to be a serious investment or currency. It was started as a joke, a parody of other coins. Even the name is based on mostly forgotten meme. But no one is laughing anymore.

Sudden internet interest and a tweet or two from Elon Musk and Mark Cuban has sent the price of Dogecoin into the ionosphere. It’s gone up by more than 11,000% so far this year, for a total market capitalization of more than $65 billion.

Free advice: It’s too late to catch this train. It’s a fad investment based on a meme and will probably fall quickly. Also, don’t lose your wallet.

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True story: When Dogecoin launched in 2013, I thought it was funny, and spent an hour or two collecting the then-valueless currency. I think I ended up with about $.35 before I got bored. My Dogecoin is now worth $4,025, but it sits in a long-forgotten digital wallet somewhere behind a password I didn’t write down.

Why is everyone talking about NFTs?

The second most exciting investment meme on the Internet this week is NFTs, because it’s often actually investing in memes. An NFT, or “Non-Fungible Token,” is a unique cryptographic token that defines a digital asset (it can apply to real-world assets too, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll be sticking with the digital). NFTs are essentially a way of establishing the authenticity and ownership of a piece of digital content, whether it’s virtual real estate in an online world, unique skins or weapons in a video game, breedable digital cats, or pieces of digital art.

Users create, buy, and sell the ownership of digital assets on marketplaces like opensea.io, allowing some people to get rich and others to lose their shirts, all without the encumbrance of physical objects.

Before you dismiss them as a joke, keep in mind: The most expensive NFT—a collection of 5,000 digital art pieces by artist Beeple—recently sold at auction for more than $60 million.

Why is everyone talking about Squishmallows?

Squishmallows are part pillow and part plushie, and kids cannot get enough of these adorable things. The things are flying off store shelves, and if the trend continues, they’ll be in the “can’t buy it at any price” category of past fad toys like Beanie Babies and Tickle-me-Elmo. They’re so popular already, there are already store shortages, online guides on where to buy ‘em, and a robust and growing secondhand market on eBay.

You should buy as many Squishmallows as you can now, or you’ll be giving only disappointment for Christmas. Or buy a bunch of them as an “investment” and sell them to desperate parents in mid December. Do you want to miss out like you missed out on Dogecoin?

Why is everyone talking about time travelers on TikTok?

TikTok is home to all kinds of folks, from student drivers terrorizing their parents, to people who post the same picture of a pear again and again. And it’s also got time travelers. Lots of them.

For instance, Jimcarreyofficial says he’s a time traveler, but he seems to be joking, where @Authentictimetraveler is dead serious. He says he’s from 2582, and he’s totally OK with potentially destroying the space-continuum by revealing future events to his 200,000 or so TikTok followers. Most of his videos involve either the discovery of new animal species, warnings about imminent environmental calamities, or insistence that he’s a real time traveler. I give him one and a half stars out of five on my internet time traveler scale—the future should be way less preachy and insecure.

On the other side of the time-travel spectrum is Javier. He lives in 2027, and he is the last person alive. His videos are evocative, depressing shots of the empty world he’s trapped in, a world that looks just like ours, but that is devoid of people and animals. He soldiers on, searching, desperate to find someone, anyone else, on earth. Five out of five stars.

Viral video of the week: The real reason McDonald’s ice cream machines are always broken

In this week’s viral video, YouTuber Johnny Harris is blowing the lid off an international fast-food conspiracy. Specifically, why the ice cream machines at McDonald’s are always broken.

For the past few years, the internet has been fascinated with the instability of McIceCream machines. It’s spawned countless theories, memes, songs, and even a webpage that tracks the status of the ice cream machines at every McDonald’s store in the country. According to mainstream media investigations, the mundane, innocent explanation for the out-of-order treat machines is that they take a long time to auto-clean, but that answer doesn’t hold up to scrutiny—Wendy’s, for instance, has ice cream machines that need to be cleaned, and they’re usually working.

To get to the bottom of the mystery, Harris takes a deep dive into the minutia of ice cream machine maintenance, franchisee contracts, and the downside of corporate capitalism to arrive at a more complex, slightly nefarious explanation for the problem. I won’t spoil it, though. Check out the video yourself.

 

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10 Ways to Better Tame Your Spring Allergies

Photo: Pheelings media (Shutterstock)

Most important: Know your allergies, especially the worst ones. If you haven’t yet, consider booking an appointment with an allergist, as they’ll be able to help you pinpoint the sources of your allergies and come up with a plan for addressing them. A food elimination diet can also help you narrow down what’s making you sick.

To look out for possible allergies when feeding a baby, use the 4-day wait rule (introduce only one new ingredient for four days), and keep a journal so you can pinpoint allergy triggers, whether it’s food or something in the environment.

And, again, get tested by an allergist if your symptoms are really bothering you. Medication might not be necessary (maybe they’ll just recommend a neti pot for seasonal allergies), but a doctor can help you live much, much better.

This story was originally published in February 2016 and was updated on May 3, 2021 as a slideshow with new photos and information.

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How to Quick-Add Macros in Any Food Tracking App

Left: creating the food. Middle: entering “carbs” as one of the foods you ate that day. Right: what your food diary looks like after you’ve used this trick to log your breakfast.

Screenshot: Beth Skwarecki, Cronometer

If you’re tracking what you eat, most items are easy enough: You either search for what it is (for example, four ounces of chicken breast), scan a barcode, or select a product name from the app’s search. What if you’re eating something that isn’t in the database, though, but you do have a nutrition label right in front of you? Here’s a hack that can make this easy.

Some apps (like MyFitnessPal’s premium version) let you “quick add” the calories, carbs, protein, and fat without going through all the trouble of creating a custom food. But if your app doesn’t support that, try this instead.

Create three custom foods called “carbs,” “protein,” and “fats.” The exact directions will vary from app to app, but you want to do something like this:

1. Create a new custom food.
2. Name it “carbs.”
3. Call the serving type a “gram.”
4. Enter its information as 4 calories, 1 gram of carbs, and leave everything else as a zero.
5. Repeat the process for protein (4 calories) and fats (9 calories).

If you want to get even more granular, you can create an entry for “fiber” as 2 calories per gram (if you do this, remember to add net carbs with your regular “carbs” entry and fiber with the “fiber” entry). Alcohol is 7 calories per gram if you’d like to add that, but alcoholic drinks usually don’t have calorie labels that would be compatible with this approach.

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We found this tip on the MacroFactor subreddit, since MacroFactor is a newer app that doesn’t have a quick-add feature yet. But it works with any app; the screenshots above show what it looks like in Cronometer. (That said, Cronometer has “quick add carbs” as an already-existing food in its database, and it works exactly the same way—so you don’t even have to create the entries yourself.)

Some apps have a quick-add feature but hide it behind the premium subscription (MyFitnessPal lets you quick-add calories in the free version but requires premium to quick-add macros). So give it a try if you’re using any app that doesn’t otherwise have a quick-add feature.

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How Dangerous Is Expired Salad Dressing?

Photo: gvictoria (Shutterstock)

For some reason, people of a certain age love to collect bottles of expired salad dressing. In fact, a recently expired bottle of Trader Joe’s Green Goddess dressing in my own fridge is just one more damning piece of evidence I am slowly morphing into my grandmother, one food item at a time (the package of cheap bologna only confirms it).

But what of those expiration dates? Do they really mean anything, or are they just part of scheme to get us to buy more salad dressing? To answer these burning questions, I contacted Dr. Donald Schaffner, extension specialist in food science and distinguished professor at Rutgers University.

The first thing I wanted to know is how serious those dates on printed on the label are. “I think you are correct in that the numbers are probably conservative in most cases,” Dr. Schaffner said via email. “Remember that the food company wants you to have a positive experience when you consume their product, so they may err on the side of good quality.”

Luckily, quality is something you can taste. If you encounter a bottle of expired dressing in your parents’ fridge (or even in your own), you can use your senses to make sure the dressing doesn’t smell rancid, and toss anything that doesn’t taste like the salad topping you know and love. “Since salad dressings often have a high fat content, they are prone to oxidation,” explained Schaffner. “Keep in mind that it might not just be a rancid smell, it may have another off-flavor. I still remember tasting an out-of-date salad dressing one time and I could’ve sworn I was tasting cardboard. It turns out that ‘cardboard’ is an actual official descriptor for some off-flavors.”

But that’s flavor. Luckily, when it comes to bacterial growth, formulation is on our side. “Most salad dressings are formulated in a way to resist growth of pathogenic microorganisms,” Schaffner explained, “and in fact would steadily kill any organisms that were present. It’s also rather unlikely that someone could contaminate their own dressing.”

It is, however, still best to throw away any dressing that looks a little…fuzzy. Schaffner confirmed that, “mold formation is a definite possibility. Molds tend to be more hearty than bacteria. Some molds may make toxins, so it’s always a good idea to toss out the food that has mold. With salad dressing, there’s not really a safe way to remove the moldy part and leave the rest, like you might do if you found a small spot of mold on a piece of bread.”

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Unopened, expired bottles may still be okay to consume, but it’s impossible to provide a time frame that would apply to every single brand of dressing. “Because all products are different, it’s not possible to specify a specific time,” Schaffner said. “Again, the manufacturer is going to be the most reliable source of information, as they have likely done extensive shelf-life studies on their product to ensure their customers are getting the best quality. It’s also going to depend how that product was held. For example: Was it on a shelf in the sunlight where it could get warm, or was it stored in a cool dark basement? Colder temperatures and less light mean higher retention of quality.”

The best way to know for sure? Give it a sniff and a taste. “If it’s unopened and it’s past its best-by date, I would try tasting a little bit,” Schaffner said. “If it tastes OK, then it’s good to go! Because of the way these products are processed and formulated, I think it’s highly unlikely that you would find any mold upon opening. But depending upon how far past the date and how it’s been handled, it might taste oxidized or otherwise ‘off.’”

So the next time you’re at your parents’ house, round up their many bottles of sketchy dressing do a little taste-testing. You might find some perfectly good raspberry vinaigrettes in there; you might find some ranches that taste of cardboard. The process won’t be pleasant, but at least you’ll be able to properly identify which ones are suffering from “off-flavor.”

This interview was lightly edited for clarity.

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How to Actually Get (Good) Responses on Your Dating Apps

If you’re on dating apps, then you know that for every match you get, you’re doing a lot of swiping. And swiping. And…some more swiping. Even if you have plenty of matches, you’re still left asking yourself: Why aren’t sparks flying?

It’s easy to get discouraged when your inbox looks like a horse’s dinner: a whole lot of “hey.” (Please keep reading). Luckily, you’re not alone: New research in a Psychology Today article suggests that the future of online dating might reflect a growing desire for more authentic, “anti-superficial” dating experiences. Here are some hacks to dive into higher-quality conversations on your dating app of choice.

Show, don’t tell

Before anyone can make the first move, you need to get your profile as swipe-able as possible. Then, take a look at your profile and replace any adjectives (even if they’re true!) with actual examples. Instead of pointing out your “good sense of humor,” try to work in a joke that demonstrates it. Instead of talking about how you’re “grinding” (ugh), you could hint at a current project you’re excited about. Not only will you come across as more interesting, but specifics will help start a real conversation.

Instead of asking, “what did you do today?” (boring, cliché, vague), lately she’s decided to ask, “what did you eat for lunch today?”

Of course, the major way to show-not-tell comes down to choosing the right pictures, which are usually worth somewhere around a thousand words. We’ve written about the art of choosing dating app photos. Another trick is to include a picture with the sole purpose of starting a conversation, like a “tag yourself”-style meme, or something as classic as a picture with your pet. So rethink that fifth selfie and try to find a photo that, as Match’s chief dating expert Rachel DeAlto told Bustle, “can make reaching out a little easier for people.”

Get more specific

In both your profile and in your DMs, specificity is key. A friend recently revealed to me one of their tricks to always getting responses: Asking a question that demands a concrete answer. Instead of asking, “what did you do today?” (boring, cliché, vague), lately she’s decided to ask, “what did you eat for lunch today?” (specific, unexpected, kicks off a conversation about a shared love for Thai leftovers that effortlessly transitions into plans to grab Thai food at their favorite spot). Another key element of this trick? Make sure you’re actually asking questions.

This sort of specificity is where your personality comes through, and it makes it way easier for the other person to match your tone with a fun and flirty response.

Comment on something on the bottom of their profile, since it’s probably less common that someone else has responded to that.

Personalize your messages

Like with cover letters, it’s obvious when you’re shooting your shot with the same lines over and over. Melissa Hobley, Global Chief Marketing Officer at OkCupid, told Refinery29 that sending “hey” as a first message has an 84% chance of being completely ignored. That’s a solid passing grade, as long as your goal is getting ignored.

Putting effort into your opening line is key to making sure you stand out, says dating coach Logan Ury, Director of Relationship Science at Hinge and one of our recent guests on The Upgrade. Her hack? Comment on something on the bottom of their profile, since it’s probably less common that someone else has responded to that.

Have a friend look over your profile

This one is simple. We’re not always the best at portraying ourselves accurately, so your friends might be able to fill in some gaps to make the profile seem more “you.” At the very least, good friends might just be able to give you the necessary ego boost so that you have the confidence to make the first move.

Keep an open mind

As clinical psychologist Jelena Kecmanovic wrote for the Washington Post, consider relaxing your criteria. This might mean expanding your age and location filters, or it could mean being the one to initiate contact with profiles that wouldn’t typically catch your eye. Think about it: swiping is designed for snap judgments, when in real life, you’re probably more thoughtful and open-minded toward prospective partners.

Make real plans ASAP

The dominating advice across platforms is to make in-person plans sooner rather than later. In her Washington Post article, Kecmanovic also wrote that the most common complaints she hears from online daters involve “frustration about how rarely they meet someone in person and how even more rarely they end up liking the people they meet.”

Minimize this frustration by making plans right out the gate—just as long as you feel safe. It’s the most important way to make intentions clear and to close the window for possible online deceit. Now stop reading and start asking strangers hyper-specific questions online. Good luck out there.

 

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10 Common Mistakes We Make Grocery Shopping, and How to Fix Them

Photo: wavebreakmedia (Shutterstock)

All days of the week aren’t equal when it comes to grocery shopping. You probably already know not to head to the grocery store for chips and salsa when it’s game day because of the crowds, but if you want to get the best deals, consider shopping mid-week and late in the day (especially on a Wednesday) when breads, meats, and other foods with limited shelf lives tend to be marked down.

You can also ask your local store when they mark down these items and when they restock their produce so you can get the freshest food. It also pays to stock up on grocery items when they go on sale for the month; April, for example, is a good time to pick up baking supplies.

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How to Beat Your Junk Food Addiction, With Michael Moss

Photo: Micaela Heck/Elena Scotti

This week we’re conquering our addiction to processed foods with help from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Michael Moss. Michael is the author of the New York Times bestselling Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, and his latest book is called Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions.

Tune in to hear Michael explain some of the psychological and biological reasons for how and why we get hooked on junk food, and some of the science-backed tips and tricks we can use to start fighting these bad habits and get on a healthier track.

Listen to The Upgrade above or find us in all the usual places where podcasts are served, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, and NPR One.

Highlights from this week’s episode

From the Michael Moss interview

On how he came to the conclusion that junk food can become an addiction:

[A]fter kind of crawling through the underbelly of this, this cartel we call the processed food industry and meeting scientists who study drug addiction and then switch to food addiction, I actually became totally convinced that in some ways these products, food products, are even more trouble for us than cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. And one of the fundamental ways is that they’re tapping into our own basic instincts, our biology, that we evolved for millennia. And it worked for us until the last 50 years when the food companies changed the nature of our food so dramatically in a way that made overeating an everyday thing. So it’s a combination of the additives that they use, like the salt, sugar, fat, and then these other things that aren’t on the label that they’re using to exploit that biology of ours.

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On learning to cook in a way that competes with the convenience of processed, pre-made meals:

The other thing I sort of argue that [the big food companies] stole from us was convenience. This kind of goes back to the 60s when more women began working outside of the house, men didn’t take up the slack when it came to cooking. And so the processed food industry stepped in and said, “Hey, we’ll solve that problem for you.” Right. You get home from work, tired, we’ll provide dinner for you. Well, it’s not that hard to begin kind of making certain foods for dinner, doing your own cooking that don’t take a lot of time. I have a recipe for spaghetti sauce down to 93 seconds now…The point is cooking, if you think of being complicated, doesn’t have to be that complicated. And it has kind of these miracle benefits. It gets you to it gets you to pay attention to the food when you do just a little bit of cooking, which is a great way of turning the tables on these food companies because these products are meant to be eaten by us mindlessly.

On the first steps to take when trying to quit your junk food addictions:

I think the first thing is avoid crazy dieting…because they work until they don’t work, and then you’re up to kind of blame yourself, right? I mean, the second thing is, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. These companies are designed in a way that, like I mentioned, destroys free will. But the third thing is, I would say just start with one thing, because these foods…cause trouble for different people at sort of different times. And maybe it’s just trying to figure out, like, what’s your most problem food? And then just pay attention to that for a while. Try to avoid that food, substitute in something else. But don’t try to do too much and spend some time with it because it could take a few weeks. Right. Remember, we’ve had a lifetime of having these companies dictate to us what we value in food. And so changing that and thinking of these foods in a different way can take time.

To hear more of Michael’s tips on how to beat your junk food addiction, we highly recommend listening to the full episode.

Have any feedback or ideas for us? Want to be featured on the show? Leave us a voicemail at 347-687-8109, or send a voice memo to upgrade@lifehacker.com. Next week we’re talking about investing, so send us your questions or best advice on the topic!

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Fitbits Sense smartwatch falls to a new low of $240 at Amazon

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This is your chance to grab Fitbit’s Sense smartwatch for $90 less than its original price: It’s now available for $240 on Amazon. That’s $9 less than its previous all-time low and the lowest price we’ve seen for the health-focused wearable on the retailer. Fitbit launched the Sense smartwatch in September 2020 and originally sold it for $330. The company called the wearable an “advanced health” device, because it’s full of features meant to monitor your physical well-being.

Buy Fitbit Sense smartwatch at Amazon – $240

We gave the smartwatch a score of 82 in our review mostly for its comprehensive health-tracking tools, which include an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor that looks for changes in your skin that may be caused by stress. The device can also track your body temperature and blood oxygen levels, as well as detect the start of a menstrual cycle. 

Like other Fitbit products (and a lot of other smartwatches), Sense can keep an eye on your heart rate and tell you if your pulse is too high or low, based on your age and resting heart rate. It can measure your runs, walks, hikes and bike rides with its built-in GPS, and it can tell you how long you were asleep based on your movement. The device can measure other exercise activities like yoga, golf, martial arts and tennis, as well. Plus, it can tell you how long you spent in the fat-burning zone and measure your cardio fitness. 

You may need a bit of time to adjust to the Sense’s completely buttonless design, and we found the new navigation a little sluggish and finicky. Still, it’s cheaper than similar devices like the Apple Watch and the Samsung Galaxy Watch, and it has more health features to offer.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

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EA acquires Super Mega Baseball developer Metalhead

The Super Mega Baseball franchise will now be part of EA Sports’ offerings. Electronic Arts has revealed that it has acquired Metalhead Software, the Canada-based video game developer behind the series. In their announcement, the companies said they’ll expand the Super Mega Baseball franchise and will also develop brand new gaming and sports experiences together. 

Metalhead assured fans in a Reddit post that the current team will stay on and that it will continue working out of its studio in Victoria, BC. It also said that the scope of future updates for SMB3 will be smaller going forward as the team moves on to other projects.

“[W]ith EA behind us,” the developer wrote, “we’ll have access to additional technologies, a wealth of expertise, and a much broader audience. For us, this is also an incredible opportunity to grow our local Victoria team and tech sector with the support of EA, and let us dig into some ambitious new projects.” The announcement didn’t detail what kind of new projects we can expect from the developer, only that they’ll be sports titles, as well. 

This acquisition is yet another step EA has taken to expand EA Sports’ lineup. Last year, the gaming titan bought Codemasters, the British developer behind countless racing franchises, and it’s also reviving the College Football games. EA Sports’ portfolio includes FIFA, Madden NFL, NHL and UFC, as well. As you’d expect, though, fans expressed their concerns about what the acquisition would mean for the SMB games. In particular, fans are worried that they would become riddled with microtransactions, which have been bringing in billions for the company in recent years.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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تقرير أمريكى صادم : العلاج الكيميائى “خدعة” للربح ..لا يعالج السرطان ويسبب الوفاة

السرطان

‏4 دقائق مضت أخر الاخبار, توب ستوري, مصر والعالم

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نشر موقع ” Healthyfood ” الأمريكى، تقريرا عن دراسة تشكل صدمة كبرى لمرضى السرطان، بل للبشرية كلها، حيث أظهرت نتائج الدراسة أن العلاج الكيميائى لا يشكل علاجا لمرض السرطان، وهو مجرد خدعة من الأطباء وشركات الأدوية الكبرى بهدف الربح.

أجرى الدراسة الدكتور هاردن B. جونز، أستاذ الفيزياء الطبية وعلم وظائف الأعضاء فى كلية بيركل، حيث أوضح أن الأشخاص المصابين بالسرطان لا يموتون بسبب المرض، لكن من العلاج الكيماوى وشدة الألم الناتج عنه.

ووفقا للدراسة، التى عمل دكتور جونز على نتائجها لمدة عامين، فإن الهدف الوحيد لعلاجات السرطان الكيميائية هو الربح، والذى يقتسمه شركات الأدوية الكبرى والأطباء، ومرافق الرعاية الصحية وغيرها من المشاركين فى هذه الصناعة، وذلك على الرغم من أن العلاج الكيميائى سام ويؤثر على بعض أجزاء الجسم فى عدد كبير من الحالات، ووفقا للإحصاءات، فإنه فى كثير من الحالات يخفى الأطباء حقيقة العلاج الكيميائى عن مرضى السرطان، ويتجاهلون حقيقة أنه غير فعال ويعرض الجسم للسموم، بل ويعجل بالوفاة.

ويؤكد الدكتور جونز أن معظم الأشخاص الذين يعانون من السرطان ويتعرضون للعلاج الكيميائي تنتهي حياتهم في ألم شديد، ومعرضون للموت بشكل أسرع مقارنة مع المرضى الذين اختاروا أي علاج آخر أو رفضوا الخضوع للعلاج الكيميائى.

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نصيحة للمرأة : ثلاثة مناطق من جسمك يفضلها الأزواج على تلك التي تهتمين بها عادة

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هل تكرهين شكل وركيك؟ أو مظهر صدرك أو ساقيك؟ ما رأيك أن بعض الرجال لا يهتمون كثيراً بهذه الأجزاء بل تلفتهم أماكن أخرى غريبة. لا تهدري الكثير من المال والوقت والجهد على أجزاء من جسمك قد لا يجدها شريكك مثيرة. تحققي من القائمة التالية لمعرفة 3 مناطق من جسم المرأة يُفضّلها بعض الرجال.

1. القدمين

كثير من الرجال يحبون أقدام النساء. حتى أنهم لا يلتفتون الى أجزاء الجسم التي تعتبر عادة مثيرة. لذلك ترين الاهتمام المفرط في صالونات التجميل بأناقة وجمال القدمين من العناية بالأظافر واختيار الألوان المفضلة لديك لطلاء الأظافر وإضافة بعض المجوهرات مثل سوار الكاحل الذهبي وخاتم الاصبع والرسم بالحنّاء.

2. اليدان

يداك جزء شبه ناطق من جسمك فهل هما ناعمتان أنيقتان؟ هل تميلين إلى إخفائهما في جيوبك أو تضمينهما في قبضة، قد يشير ذلك إلى أنك لا تشعرين بالأمان وأنك تكتمين أشياء حاولي فتح يديك عندما تكونين مع الحبيب رمزاً للتقبّل والاهتمام والاستعداد للتواصل كذلك اعتني بأظافرك ونعومة بشرتك لأن التواصل بلمس الأيدي سيظلّ لوقت طويل الطريقة الأساسية لنقل الأحاسيس.

3. الظهر

هل ظهرك صلب وناعم الملمس؟ بينما ينجذب بعض الرجال إلى الساقين يلتفت آخرون إلى الظهر الأملس والمشدود العضلات الذي يظهر أنوثتك ورشاقتك.

اعتني بهذا الجزء من المهمل من جسمك عبر ممارسة الرياضة والحصول على جلسات تديلك منتظمة بالزيوت التي تفضّلينها.

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