Aimless Direction

I’ve collected the best breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides, and dessert honey recipes of the year that I could find, and if you like honey as much as I do, you’re going to love every one of them.

Did you know that honey can sooth coughs, metabolize alcohol, and is a great source of energy for workouts?

All of those benefits are super-useful during the holiday season!

Honey Lavender Scones



Scones go great with a nice cup of coffee in the morning. Get the recipe.

Sweet Peach Honey And Ricotta-Filled Crepes



These crepes are easy to make and taste like dessert for breakfast. Get the recipe.

Whipped Cinnamon Pumpkin Honey Butter



You’re going to love this pumpkin honey butter on rolls, bagels, toast, and English muffins. Get the recipe.

Honey Apricot Millet With Blueberry Compote & Toasted Almonds



A hearty, healthy, and delicious breakfast dish. Get the recipe.

Vanilla, Honey and Cinnamon Smoothie



You can’t go wrong with a quick smoothie in the morning. Get the recipe.

Rainbow Chicken Salad With Almond Honey Mustard Dressing



A healthy chicken salad with fruit and sweet and tangy homemade honey mustard. Get the recipe.

Honey Chipotle Chicken Bowls



Keep warm with sweet and spicy honey chipotle chicken. This recipe is filling, but also light and refreshing. Get the recipe.

Baked Honey Mustard Chicken



You’ll want to eat the honey mustard sauce all by itself, it’s so good. The chicken is just a bonus. Get the recipe.

Slow Cooker Honey-Mustard Glazed Ham



The best thing about this ham recipe is that you can throw it into a slow cooker and forget about it. Get the recipe.

Honey Salmon in Foil



You’ll have a tender, flavorful salmon in only 15 minutes. Combine with rice and vegetables for a delicious and filling meal. Get the recipe.

Baked Honey Lime Chicken Taquitos



These taquitos have a sweet and spicy flavor and are baked instead of fried. Get the recipe.

Slow Cooker Balsamic Honey Pulled Pork



This pulled pork recipe has a secret ingredient – blackberry jam. Get the recipe.

Honey Mustard Chicken



This recipe calls for chicken thighs, but if you’re not a fan of dark meat, chicken breasts will work just fine. Get the recipe.

Panko Crusted Honey Mustard Salmon



A flavorful salmon recipe sure to fill you up on healthy fats. Get the recipe.

Baked Honey Sriracha Wings



These would be perfect for the Broncos game 😉 Get the recipe.

Honey-Drizzled Cheddar Cheese



It doesn’t get any simpler than this. Get the recipe.

Crockpot Honey Garlic Little Smokies



Little smokies never last long at my family get-togethers. Get the recipe.

Sriracha Honey Slow Cooker Meatballs



Sriracha is delicious and seems to go well on anything, even meatballs. Get the recipe.

Roasted Honey Dijon Potatoes



A perfect side dish. Get the recipe.

Honey-Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey-Cinnamon Dip



Sweet potatoes roasted in a marinade of honey, coconut oil and cinnamon. Get the recipe.

Stuffed Honey-Ham Biscuits



If you need some delicious honey biscuits, and fast, check out this simple recipe. Get the recipe.

Honey-Oat Pan Rolls Recipe



Made with whole wheat flour and old fashioned oats, these delicious honey rolls are tasty and filling. Get the recipe.

Honey Butter Cloverleaf Rolls



These sweet, soft and buttery rolls pull apart, ready to be coated in even more delicious honey. Get the recipe.

Chocolate Chip Honey Cake (no sugar added)



An extra moist cake, that’s easy to make and full of flavor. Get the recipe.

Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Frosting



Read the comments for directions on how to prepare these amazing looking cupcakes. Get the recipe.

Sea Salt & Honey Ice Cream (No Machine Needed!)



Do you like the taste of salted caramel? If so, you’ll like this. And no ice cream machine needed! Get the recipe.

What is success to you?

Is it money, a fulfilling job, popularity, happiness, having a family, owning a business, being the strongest person in the world?

Whatever your definition is of success, you can make it happen by adjusting your habits.

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” Chris Grosser

What habits do you have that are holding you back from being as successful as possible?

What habits SHOULD you incorporate into your daily life to be even more successful?

Most people have habits from both categories of this infographic.

The first step is to identify our weaknesses and where we can improve ourselves. Then we need to put it into action – even if it’s just one habit at a time.

It’s said that if you do something every day for 30 days, it’ll become a habit.

With that in mind, Start small and pick one shortcoming and one habit that you desire to have and work on each for a month. Then pick two more the next month. Before you know it, you’ll have made quite an impact on your success.

The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of archived internet history and now also an archive of classic video games.

Jason Scott is the force behind The Internet Arcade, a collection of 900 coin-operated arcade games converted to be playable in your web browser.

These games date back to the 1970s and through to the 1990s.

As Jason explains, not all games are perfect, but he’s been working for months on testing and refining each game.

And while some games might have odd scaling issues or are extremely difficult to play using a keyboard or controller, many of the games play amazingly perfect.

This is where it all started. Go play some games!

Do you know what types of clothes fit your body style the best?

We all know that certain types of clothes look more or less flattering depending on our body shape, but it’s hard to figure out exactly what those types of clothes are.

Well, if you’re looking for tips on how to choose the most flattering necklines, swimwear, dresses, jeans, and skirts for your body type, follow the tips in this infographic to be sure you always look your best.

“Tears For Fears – The Hurting” by Piano Piano! is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Update: The new Taco Bell commercial featuring a new cover of Mad World from the artist Halsey has been added to the “Singer Songwriter” section below.

Mad World, the hit song from the band Tears for Fears (below) was released in 1982 and was covered by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews for the Donnie Darko movie in 2001, bringing the song back into popularity two decades after the original was released.

Here’s the Gary Jules version.

It’s one of my absolute favorite songs and even after listening to almost a hundred different covers of this song in order to put this article together, I’m still not tired of it.

There are so many Mad World covers that it would be crazy of me to publish them all, so I chose the most interesting covers I could find out of the whole bunch.

Let’s get into it!

Choose your favorite genre from the menu below.

• 8-bit – (3 covers)
• Thrash / Black Metal – (3 covers)
• Dark Wave / Goth – (3 covers)
• Folk / Bluegrass – (3 covers)
• Punk – (2 covers)
• Hard Rock / Metal – (2 covers)
• Electronica / Techno – (4 covers)
• Rap / Hip Hop – (3 covers)
• Dubstep – (2 covers)
• A Capella – (2 covers)
• Orchestra / Classical – (3 covers)
• Reggae – (2 covers)
• Blues – (1 cover)
• Choir – (2 covers)
• R&B – (2 covers)
• Singer Songwriter – (2 covers)
• Acoustic – (3 covers)
• Opera – (1 cover)
• Jazz – (3 covers)

Chiptune / 8-bit Mad World Cover

Game Deaths by Rob Beschizza – Created by Rob Beschizza for BoingBoing.net. This 8-bit style cover of Mad World is played over a compilation of classic video game deaths.

This 8-bit remake of Mad World comes from Klak Guguilje, a big fan of 8-but music. He’s got a whole bunch of other 8-bit remakes on his YouTube channel.

Derek, or BuckyBoy2009 as he’s known online, is an expert in the mostly forgotten game of Mario Paint Composer. Check out his skills in this Mario Paint Composer Mad World remake.

Thrash / Black Metal Mad World Covers

This song starts out sloppy, but wait until about 1:25 and you’ll understand why this is called thrash metal. If you’re a fan of this kind of music, I think you’ll like this cover from Bludgeond.

Mad World by Zonaria – Get your metal growl fix here.

Mad World Cover by Graveyard of Souls – More growl. This version is a much slower dark metal cover.

Dark Wave / Goth Mad World Covers

Mad World by SPECTRA PARIS

Mad World Gothic Version by Jennifer Engel (Snow Queen1972)

Mad World Cover by Brainclaw

Folk / Blue Grass Mad World Covers

Mad World by Trampled by Turtles

Mad World by Tara MacLean – Not exactly folksy, but she’s a folk singer. She has a beautiful voice.

Mad World Cover By Greenwoodsidee

Punk Mad World Covers

Mad World Punk Cover by Sincerely Me – You’ll like this Mad World rock cover if you like new school punk.

Mad World Ska Punk Cover by King Tuts Revenge

Hard Rock / Metal Mad World Covers

Mad World Metal Cover by Evergreen Terrace – This version starts out with punk vibe, but then gets pretty heavy.

Mad World Metal Cover by Pilotless Drone – These guys really took the time to make this song their own. Hard Rock fans might feel like this starts out a little soft, but it gets much heavier around the 4 minute mark.

Electronica / Techno Mad World Covers

Mad World (Club Mix) by DJ Pulsedriver

Mad World Remix by Dj Tiesto

Mad World (Pump Remix) by Firemaster – This is a Tears for Fears Mad World Cover because it came out in 1996. Most covers seem to be inspired by the Gary Jules version.

Mad World (Drum and Bass Remix) by DJ Yogi

Rap / Hip Hop Mad World Covers

Mad World by DJ Enex and Simba Shan – with Akon Ft. Eminem, Gary Jules & 2Pac – Not an actual cover, but a pretty good mashup, minus the sound quality of Tupac’s part.

Mad World (Remix) by Lowkey & Doc Brown

Familiar Faces (Mad World Remix) by Rhymefest

Dubstep Mad World Covers

Mad World (TOER Dubstep Remix) by TOER – Dubstep kicks in at about 1:20

Mad World (Phutureprimitive Remix) by Phutureprimitive

A Cappella Mad World Covers

Mad World (A Cappella, Clip) by Street Corner Symphony

Mad World Cover by Wise Guys

Classical Orchestra Mad World Covers

Mad World for orchestra, arr. by Rafael Krux

Mad World (cover) by the Neko Light Orchestra – The Neko Light Orchestra isn’t your typical orchestra, but I highly suggest giving it a listen all the way through.

Mad World Cello Piano Cover by Chris Klusendorf

Reggae Mad World Covers

Mad World (reggae version) by Reggaesta – This is basically the original version with a slightly reggae-fied beat.

“So Good” (Mad World Cover) by Stick Figure

Blues Mad World Covers

Mad World Blues Style by Paul Sahner – This starts out as a generic Mad World piano cover until about the 1 minute mark, then the blues kicks in. This would have been so much better with a quality mic, but it’s still pretty damn good.

Choir Mad World Covers

Mad World by Vocal Project

Mad World by The Lost Choir – This one was put together by the International Children’s Fund to bring awareness to children in need. It has a powerful message.

Soul / R&B Mad World Covers

Mad World Cover by Novel – This song was dedicated to Oscar Grant, who was unarmed and lying face down when he was shot and killed by Oakland, California police officer Johannes Mehserle in 2009.

Mad World (R&B version) by Chris Davis and Sarah Marie Gayle

Singer-Songwriter Mad World Covers

This new Mad World cover from Halsey has people everywhere trying to find the full song. At this time (July 22, 2015), the full song hasn’t been released by the artist yet (not even leaked!). Halsey’s new album “Badlands” comes out on August 28th but the song is not listed in the track list. It appears the song was created solely for the Taco Bell commercial and may never be released, but keep an eye on Halsey’s website or SoundCloud profile and maybe it’ll show up. For now, enjoy the Mad World Taco Bell commercial 😉

Mad World Cover by Alex Parks – When I told my wife I was putting this article together, this was the first version she told me to look up. It’s a beautiful cover. I really like all of the Mad World female versions I’ve heard, and this one is definitely one of the best.

Mad World by Elisa Toffoli – Another great Mad World female version. Wait until about the 1:45 mark where it gets really dramatic.

Acoustic Mad World Covers

Adam Lambert Mad World Top 8 Performance at American Idol 2009 – Skip ahead to the 45 second mark to skip the biography. This Mad World Lambert cover is one of the most popular covers online. I can see why. He has an amazing voice.

Gary Jules Mad World Cover by Leon Karmameleon – This is a fun one because it’s raw. It’s just a guy playing in a public space in Avignon, France while people are hanging out and kids are running around.

Mad World Guitar Cover by Michael Chapdelaine – Mr. Chapdelaine takes this instrumental Mad World acoustic cover very seriously and that’s a good thing!

Opera

Mad World Cover by Renée Fleming – Renée Fleming is a famous soprano opera singer.

Jazz Mad World Cover

Mad World Jazz Cover by Ryan Milligan

Shannon Butcher Quartet performs Mad World on BT – This version is really fast-paced, which is so different from every other cover out there. Shannon Butcher did a great job of transforming this song to her style.

Mad World Gary Jules Cover – Jazz Improvisation on the Piano – this Mad World piano cover has a whole bunch of fun jazz riffs mixed in.

“Photographing the photographer” by Thibault Martin-Lagardette is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

I use Creative Commons images all the time for my blog posts. It makes my articles more interesting and breaks up the content for better readability. Images can increase your conversion rate too, which is great for commercial sites trying to sell products.

I try to use my own images when I can, but I don’t usually have the time or the ability to take my own photos for every subject I write about and CC-licensed make spicing up a blog post a cinch.

The official Creative Commons website has great article on best practices for attribution. I’ve taken their examples and converted to HTML so that I can easily plug in the information I need.

Ideal Attribution:
“<a href=”” target=”_blank”>Image Name</a>” by <a href=”” target=”_blank”>Photographer Name</a> is licensed under <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/” target=”_blank”>CC BY 2.0</a>

Good Enough:
<a href=”” target=”blank”>Image Name</a> by Photographer Name / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/” target=”_blank”>CC BY 2.0</a>

There are lots of places you can find Creative Commons images, but my favorite is using search.creativecommons.org. Just remember to always verify the license before using an image. Search engines like these do their best to find CC images, but aren’t always reliable.

Now on to the infographic!

How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos by Foter

“Fireworks July 4th Independence Day 2013 Polo Field” by Colin Henderson is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

If you’re an inexperienced photographer, like me, you’ve probably tried to take photos of 4th of July fireworks with disappointing results. Well, this year is going to be different!

You’re going to learn a lot about your camera while working your way through this guide, and some of it might seem a little technical but don’t worry, it’s actually not that difficult.

Lets get started!

Taking Photos at Night

First, you need to understand a little bit about how your camera works at night. If you’re going to be out on the 4th of July, you’ll probably want to take photos of friends and family too and not just pictures of fireworks, in which case these tips will be super helpful.

Here’s a 7-minute video with some great quick tips on night-time photography.

You won’t get good photos if you’re using the Automatic modes on your camera. A digital camera has a light-sensitive sensor that works best during the day, so if you try to use it at night the flash will ruin most of your photos.

The trick is to get more light into your camera. You do this by setting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO setting.

The aperture controls the amount of light entering the camera. It works a bit like your pupils. The lower the f/stop number, the more open the aperture is, letting more light into the lens. At night, you’ll most likely want to shoot with the aperture wide open.

When you snap a photo, you open the shutter. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light your camera’s sensor absorbs. You need to use longer shutter speeds at night so that the sensor gets enough light to create the image. If you bump or shake your camera while the shutter is open, you’ll get a blurry photo.

The ISO setting on your camera controls the light sensitivity of your camera’s sensor. If you’re in extreme darkness, you’ll want to increase the ISO setting. Keep in mind that the higher your ISO setting, the more noise your camera’s sensor creates, which can make your photos look grainy. You can use noise-reduction filters in a photo editing program if this happens to you.

• Switch your camera to manual mode
• Aperture: Choose the lowest f-number your camera has. You might need to do one, ten, or even 30 seconds in some cases.
• Set a long shutter speed. Start at 1 second and add/reduce time as necessary (Nikon recommends 1/15, 1/8, 1/4 second or longer)
• Prevent blurry photos by using a tripod (or Gorillapod to travel light) and use a self timer or remote to snap the photo

How to Take Photos of Fireworks

The tips above are the basic starting points you need to know before you take photos of fireworks, but lets get a little more specific. For fireworks photography you still need a tripod, and you’ll need to mess around with your aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings. You also want to scout out your location.

If you’re going to a park where there are a lot of people, you’ll also want to scope out a spot where you’ll have room to set up a tripod. You want a spot where you’ll have room to setup and without obstructions. Make sure the spot you choose won’t have people walking in front of your camera constantly or where people might kick your tripod, and stay away from streetlights and other artificial light sources to avoid light flare.

You also want to choose a spot where the wind isn’t coming towards you, otherwise you’ll get smoke in your shots, which will get worse as the show goes on.

“Fireworks & Castle” by Martyn M is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Next you’ll want to become familiar with your lens focus. Auto focusing features can become confused by the brightness of the fireworks and the smoke they create. You’ll want to turn auto-focus off so that you can manually focus your lens. If your camera doesn’t allow you to turn off auto-focus, set it to Landscape mode, if it has one. The icon will look like a small mountain range. It’s the same as setting the lens on a film camera to infinity.

To get the best photos possible, set your image quality to high (but not RAW or the photos will take too long between shots). Lower quality settings increases the amount of compression on your photos and can introduce artifacts into your photos, which is even more likely to happen when taking photos at night of fireworks.

You want to use a low f/stop setting to let more light in. The suggested settings are anywhere between f/8 and f/16.

As mentioned above, ISO settings that are too high can result in grainy photos. Many photographers recommend settings of 50 or 100, although newer and faster cameras work well at ISOs of 800, 1600, and even 3200. This is something you’ll have to play around with on your own camera.

For exposure, you’ll want to try using shutter speeds anywhere between 1-4 seconds. You want to try to get your shutter to open at the beginning of the firework burst and close when the explosion is at it’s largest. Also worth noting, exposure time is usually shorter when using a zoom lens as opposed to a wide angle shot. Longer shutter speeds will also create light trails if the shutter is open for longer times. This is a fun photo effect that you might want to play around with.

Below are some ISO and f/stop recommendations from Jim Bartman of the New York Institute of Photography

Putting It All Together

Now that you know all of the little intricacies of taking photos at night and fireworks photography, let’s put it all together in a quick bulleted list that you can refer back to later.

Quick fireworks photography tips:

• Use a tripod. Without one, you are almost guaranteed to take a blurry shots.
• Turn off your flash, or black it out with electrical tape
• Pre-focus your camera. Set it on the infinity setting or Landscape mode
• Set the images to high-quality (but not RAW)
• Set f/stop between f/8 and f/16
• Turn off auto ISO and set it to 50 or 100 if possible. Newer cameras might be fine at much higher settings
• Use a remote or the timer setting to prevent bumping the camera during shots
• Set the exposure from anywhere between 1-4 seconds. Start at one second and work up from there.

Practice a few nighttime photos the day before (or earlier) than 4th of July to make sure that your camera is ready. You don’t want to fumble around with your camera’s settings at the last minute and risk missing some great shots.

Even if you prepare ahead of time, you still might end up having to mess around with your camera settings the day of the event, so consider bringing a small flashlight so that you can see the settings on your camera.

You’ll probably be taking a ton of photos too so make sure to bring a large memory card, or a backup, as well as some backup batteries.

If these fireworks photography tips have been helpful, let me know in the comments.

Have a happy 4th of July!

Sources:

• DSLR Tips Workshop: How to take photos at night
• HowStuffWorks “How to Take Photos of the Night Sky
• Get Better Fireworks Photos This Fourth of July
• Shooting Fireworks with a Digital Camera
• Photograph Fireworks – Wired How-To Wiki

Macs do a lot of things right but occasionally they get things completely wrong, and that’s exactly the case when it comes to screen recording. Why screen recording isn’t built in to iMovie is a mystery to me but at least it’s possible with Apple’s Quicktime Player.

The one problem with using Quicktime to record is that it’s not able to record the audio being played by your computer (another silly oversight from Apple). It can capture mic input, so if you turn the audio up really loud you might be able to get useful recordings, but it’ll sound like it’s coming out of a tin can.

Luckily, there’s a neat audio extension for Mac called Soundflower, which lets you re-route audio from applications to other applications.

Check out the walk-through tutorial below on how to set this up. It’s fairly easy.

I’ve seen this picture on Facebook many times, and I’ve never believed that she actually makes $1250 per day doing this, but I always just kept on scrolling through my Facebook feed anyway. Well it popped up in my feed again today and my desire to learn the truth behind these silly memes got the better of me, so I started doing some basic research.

I started by searching Google for “lady selling margaritas on beach” and “margarita boob lady,” both of which brought up several variations of the story.

Some claim that she charges $10 a minute and that she’s clearing $1,250.00 per day. Others claim that she’s actually selling lemonade and that she really makes $250.00 per day.

As I started looking through comments on various posts, I found a few people mention that she isn’t at a beach but at Burning Man, which you can tell from the weird stuff in the background.

So I searched Google for “lemonade boob lady at burning man” where I came across a post called “Lemonade Boobies.” Read through the comments and you find one by someone named Marcy, which turns out to be the woman in the photo.

So there you have it. If it’s to be believed that this comment is from the woman in the photo, she’s at Burning Man, not the beach. There actually is margarita in there, but also Gatorade in the other. And she’s not making any money at all!