Hasta La Gadget!

Bad news for Pokemon Go players looking forward to an enhanced way of playing the mobile game: the wearable accessory that pairs with players’ phones and notifies them of nearby creatures, called Pokemon Go Plus, has been pushed back to a September release. The optional device was originally due to be available towards the end of July — around now, … Continue reading

Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition isn’t the only nostalgia bomb the company is dropping this fall. Nope, Playing With Power: Nintendo NES Classics from strategy-guide publisher Prima Games is en route for this November as well. The hardcover boasts 320…

With so many browsers to choose from, users are often spoilt for choice. Now if you are a fan of Mozilla’s Firefox browser and you love using it across your mobile devices and computers, the latest update for iOS might be worth taking a look at, especially with Mozilla’s claims that the latest build is more battery efficient.

According to Mozilla, “It’s summer intern season and our Firefox for iOS Engineer intern Tyler Lacroix pulled out all the stops this month when he unveiled the results of his pet project – making Firefox faster.  In Tyler’s testing, he saw up to 40% reduction in CPU usage and up to 30% reduction in memory usage when using this latest version of Firefox.  What this means is that users can get to their Web pages faster while seeing battery life savings.”

That being said, it should be pointed out that this will probably differ from user to user in real-life. This is because there are many things that can cause a battery to drain faster than it should, such as enabling background app refresh, location services, push notifications, and so on. This means that while the new build of Firefox should improve your battery life, you might not necessarily be seeing the same numbers as reported by Mozilla.

In addition to the speed and battery improvements, Mozilla has also updated it to make its menu easier for navigating, switching between search engines, recovering closed tabs, and so on. The latest build should be available from the iTunes App Store, so hit it up for the download if you haven’t done so already.

Latest Firefox Build For iOS Improves Its Battery Usage , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

One day, you are going about your business when you catch sight of yourself wearing your favorite Hello Kitty t-shirt that always made you feel so free-spirited. Suddenly you think, “When did I turn into my Aunt Gladys?” Many of us fall into the trap of wearing clothes that are too young for us, thinking that the alternative is to wear dowdy, frumpy clothes.  But here’s the rub: Ironically, when you dress too young, you often make yourself look much older. And then there is the opposite trap of making yourself look older with dated trends. (Please, please, say goodbye to the 1980s Dynasty-style shoulder pads!)

“You always want to look modern, but that doesn’t mean forcing a trend that doesn’t match your body type and age,” says Samantha Brown, stylist, fashion expert, personal shopper and founder of the designer clothing consignment store, The Missing Piece. “You don’t want to look like you are trying too hard or holding on to a decade that’s past.”

Other signs that you are not dressing your age…

#1. You are still shopping at trendy teen store.

“That’s a firm no. The clothing teens wear is not the clothing you should wear and vice versa.  The cuts are different, and their lifestyle is different than yours,” says Brown, owner of samanthabrownstyle.com. That’s said, trends are open to interpretation across the ages. The way a youth is doing the leopard print trend may not be the way you should. If she is doing leopard print leggings and you like leopard, translate the trend and get a kicky pair of leopard flats. And men, even if you can squeeze into young men’s low-slung pants, with your boxers hanging out, don’t. Just don’t. Stick with fitted flat-front pants. (Going in the opposite direction with dated pleated pants will age you.)

#2. Your drawers are full of graphic humor t-shirts with sayings like, “My get up and go got up and went.”

Know your audience. If you spend a lot of time with your grandkids and are wearing it for the purpose of entertaining, that’s appropriate. However, if you are interacting with people your age, it’s little juvenile and silly for day to day. Think of the real message you are conveying and the first impression you make. You want people to think that you are pulled together, creative, powerful, self-possessed. “Novelty t-shirts say you have a sense of humor but maybe you can project that in a different way, perhaps with a quirky piece of jewelry, whimsical prints, or bright colors.  That is a way to show that aspect of your personality that seems more mature,” says Brown.

#3. You like to show a lot of skin: low hanging pants, lots of leg, Real Housewives-ish décolleté.

No, this is not about body-shaming. If you got it, flaunt it—but there are ways to do it so that it looks sexy and sensual, and not cheap. First, pick only one space to show. If you have a low cut dress, then keep the hem longer. If you are doing a short top, don’t show the belly button and pair it with long pants or a cool jacket. Be mindful of highlighting your best features. “A lot of designers are doing cutouts with sheer panels now. That is a really elegant, classy way to do it. There is still skin but there is still coverage. A sheer sleeve is still sexy but gives coverage,” says Brown.

#4. You still dress like you did 10 years ago.

The quickest way to age yourself is to wear something out of date, unless it is a timeless classic silhouette. Looking modern is more important than looking trendy. This holds especially true for men who hold onto their suits for decades. Suit jackets have become more tailored. You should be able to fit only one fist in between your chest and the lapels when the jacket is buttoned. If there is more room, it’s probably too big and an older style.

Update your closet every few seasons. “If you are into vintage clothing, most look better when mixed with modern pieces, like a 70s long flowing dress with a new leather jacket. But be careful: getting the right fit is everything,” says Brown.

#5. You are still rebelling against The Man. 

You can remain true to who you are without looking like a Ramones roadie. “I will say that if you want to participate in that trend, it is weekend casual. It shouldn’t be worn to work,” says Brown. If you want to go bad-ass and edgy, wear one statement piece matched with more timeless wear. For example, if you are into the ripped denim trend, keep the rips minimal on the knees. (“No butt rips!” Brown state firmly) Then dress it up with a fitted jacket and top.

#6. Your swimsuit is from another era.

Even if you are not comfortable with your body, you don’t have to suffer in a frumpy burka-like ensemble. There are amazing one-pieces out there with cut outs, and nice shaping. Brown says to look for ruching (it’s a great to define a waist), a natural built-in waistline, and chest support. For men, Speedos are a hard no in the US. Also, make sure the suit doesn’t squeeze the waist into a muffin top and is something you can move in. “If you can’t stand up, sit down or swim, it’s probably not the right choice” says Brown.

Overall, Brown adds, “People over 50 shouldn’t shy away from participating in trends because they feel intimidated. Fashion and great style are for everyone.  There is no reason to wear your LL Bean turtleneck and shrink into the background. You can participate in trends but pay attention to cut, fit, style and how it fits into your lifestyle.”

Read more from Grandparents.com:

Reverse Mortgages: A Primer

5 Reasons Not To Pay Off Your Mortgage Early

6 Questions To Ask Before An Aging Parent Moves In

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Trajectory of Flight 146, Zurich to New Delhi, on a flight tracking site.
Image: FlightAware

Flight 146 from Zurich to New Delhi is late taking off today, later than it’s been over the past week. Normally I wouldn’t care whether the long-haul A333 is a few minutes late, but this one carries my daughter freshly off her college degree, towards New Delhi for a month of backpacking through northern India with her boyfriend.

I’m doing what I do when someone I care about is taking a flight, it doesn’t matter the distance: I go to a flight tracking web site, enter the flight number, and click to watch the little virtual airplane icon nose its way from start to finish. It serves the questionable purpose of reassuring me that all is well, and provides a visual distraction from garden variety maternal worry.

My mother didn’t have the luxury of tracking my whereabouts when I made my first major solo trip back in the 1980s, also directly after college. She told me to keep in touch during the planned three months of my European tour. Back then, that meant postcards and reverse-charged calls from phone booths in post offices or the occasional American Express desk. It was a nuisance which required waiting in line, and I didn’t do it very often. After all, I was 22 and a responsible adult.

Old school private phone booths in the central Saigon Post Office, much fancier than most I ever used in Europe. Image: Wikimedia.

My mother had grown used to me being gone from home and on my own while I was at college, and during the parts of my youth when I lived with my father. She professed to believe that worrying never changed a thing.

These days, I wish I could say I inherited her professed insouciance. I’ve spent the last few weeks checking online advice boards for female travelers in India, ordering travel accessories like portable wash lines and microfiber towels, pestering about paperwork, making a nervous hen of myself, all from the distance of home to college.

Oh, look, the little plane carrying my kid has taken off and flown right out of the map window, it’s already half-way across Austria, trailing a fine green line behind like a hand-drawn vapor trail. Seven hours to go.

I can’t remember what inspired me to do a tour of Europe when I graduated from college back in 1984. I thought it was just what people did. Finish college, do the Grand Tour thing.

I had what is politely referred to as a shoestring budget, meaning a very short stack of traveller’s checks and not much else in my impractical and borrowed duffel bag. No credit cards for recent grads back then. This meant I stayed with friends as much as possible — explaining why the trip started in Germany, where I had lived for a year as a teenager.

For the first four weeks, I was staying with people who had phones, and I could just call and reverse the charges. My mom was always cheerful, asked after my friends, got a rundown of my minor adventures, and that was about it.

My mom went on vacations to resorts in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Mexico; what I was doing was real traveling. I felt every inch the intrepid traveller with my meagre funds, Interrail pass and inconvenient luggage. I doubt I asked much about her days. I told my stories with the snobbery of youth.

Flight 146 is making good headway, almost across Romania by now, almost at the Black Sea. Six hours, 12 minutes left.

Image: Wikimedia

Our kid was born in Germany. She grew up in France and studied in England. She’s her own Grand Tour. She’s been through much of Europe on family trips; she spent a few weeks over summer last year exploring Eastern Europe. Sure, I worried, but she was never more than a few hours drive by car if something went wrong. Not that I thought it would. She’s 21, responsible, level-headed.

She texted us at one point from Budapest and sent images of a main train station overflowing with travelers of a different kind: thousands of refugees. She was on her way to Vienna that day. She bought food for some of the refugees, hopped on a train with her pre-purchased ticket and European passport, and just missed the closing of the train station itself.

There are events so strange and sudden that they don’t even bear fretting about. And there’s the kind of luck that comes with having the right papers at the right time.

It never occurred to me that my mother might be worried about me as I moved by train and occasional free ride from Germany through Austria and Italy. I had a few bad encounters in Rome, mostly of the groping kind. Nothing I mentioned because in the end, I emerged angry but unscathed. A girlfriend from back home met up with me in Florence, so I wasn’t traveling solo.

The groping events prompted us to leave Italy and head for Greece instead. We informed our respective mothers, both of whom just said to let them know when we arrived in Athens, which we planned to do within a week.

We spent a harrowing night in a hostel in Bari, the hallways filled with rowdy men who banged on our door, the beds too filthy for sleep in any case, before taking a ferry to Corfu.

From a vintage postcard of Corfu.

We fell in love with the island of cobblestone streets, white beaches and blue seas. We found guest beds with a nice family for two dollars a night, rented a single scooter and spent a week instead of the planned two days, so taken with the scenery that we outlasted our budget. My friend sent her mother a telegram: Send some cash, please, to the American Express in Athens.

We got on a ferry. I don’t remember why I didn’t call my mother from Corfu. I probably wanted to get back on the scooter and head to a beach.

Hey, what’s that? The online flight tracker shows that Flight 146 has made a sharp turn over the Black Sea near the coast of Georgia? The green line has done a serious zag. My heart goes into my stomach. It’s flying the wrong way, into northern Turkey. Hijacked? Some kind of storm? I scroll through the week’s past flights — none of them have done this.

I refresh today’s page and the tiny plane is back on track, drawing its green line through central Georgia, skirting the northern border of Armenia. 37,000 feet altitude, four hours, six minutes remaining. Relief as my heart makes its way back up to where it belongs.

Was it always in my nature to worry? I don’t think so. I remember feeling anxious about money, jobs, or grades, or relationships. But before parenthood, my worries were of the vague, global variety. The kind of things that perturb activist souls. The Ozone Hole. The Cold War. Overpopulation.

Travel was not a source of concern, it was a happy compulsion.

When we arrived in Athens, we headed straight for American Express in hope of finding a cash wire. Instead, there was a telegram: ‘Not cardholder. Call home.’ We’d have to wait another day before we could afford to eat more than bread rolls.

Since we were there anyway, I called my mother.

Image: Preloved

It must have been shortly before dawn back in Virginia, where she was awaiting a kidney transplant — an operation she told me not to worry about because of course it would be successful. I took her at her word. The operator asked whether my mother would accept the charges, she said yes, and then I could hear her holding back tears.

She’d been so worried when I hadn’t been in touch, it had been almost three weeks. (Had it really been that long? It hadn’t seemed like that long.)

She had already dug out a couple of photos of me, recent headshots, and had called her travel agent to book a flight to Athens. If she hadn’t heard from me in two more days, she would have been on a plane for her first non-vacation international journey.

“What were you planning on doing when you got here, Mom?” I knew she looked and acted healthy, but she was on regular dialysis treatment.

“Go up and down the country saying, ‘have you seen this girl’ until I found someone who had seen you. Then bring you home.” She was laughing now at the absurdity, the impossibility of the idea.

I was fine. Aside from being a terrible daughter, I was fine. She was the one we should have been worrying about, not me. Not that it would have changed anything.

Becoming a person of worry has been a journey paved with watching a child grow and face the kind of dangers that I could help avert. At least sometimes. Softening the transition to a new school, holding hands while crossing the street, talking about drugs, discussing birth control.

It’s an unexpected journey each time. I know worrying doesn’t do much good on the ground where it counts, but unlike the steady green line of where that little plane has been, for twenty-one years my vapor trail of worry has been out ahead of me, going in all different directions, plotting a multitude of potential courses.

Flight 146 is over Pakistan now. Two more hours until the plane lands safely in New Delhi and I can stop refreshing the flight tracker page. Then it’s only another four weeks of not worrying. Not worrying at all.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.