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12th Sep 2016

JOE’s Weekly Cheat Sheet #4: Ego trips and a scary witch

Your weekly slice of sound advice.

JOE

Something everyone will be talking about…

Blair Witch is back, hitting cinemas on September 16, and whether you love it or hate it, the hype is inescapable.

At the time of writing, the film has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomato, but clearly the website hasn’t yet taken into account a handful of heavily negative reviews from outlets like The Guardian.

If you’re a fan of horror, Blair Witch is likely to please. For fans of the original film, imagine combining some of the features that made The Blair Witch Project great, and adding in elements of the new breed of hyper intense horror movies such as Insidious and the recently released Lights Out. It’s certainly lost the low budget innocence and charm of the original, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost it’s ability to get inside your head and keep you up all night.

Something that’ll make you (seem) cooler…

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So it seems like the weather is intent on being hot and muggy, and unleashing torrents of rain for 15 minutes at a time whenever you step outside.

What you need is either a very good umbrella, or a waterproof rain jacket that isn’t going to boil you to death in this close heat.

Rains have a good range of classic raincoats for Autumn at prices that aren’t going to leave your wallet hurting. They also look great.

Something you should listen to this week…

South-London hip hop duo Too Many T’s have dropped what they describe as a “full throttle, tongue-in-cheek ego trip over one of the hardest grime beats of the year”, and it’s hard to disagree with that, to be honest.

Produced by Odjbox, “Better Than” packs in more pop culture references than “We Didn’t Start The Fire” and is infectuous to the point that you will find yourself mentally reeling off a list of things you’re better than for the rest of the day.

Something that’ll change your life…

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Voice control is one of those things that *seems* cool, but that, in reality, has never really matched the slick way it’s portrayed in movies, adverts and TV.

Anyone who’s ever tried to show off to their mates by uttering the words “OK, Google” only to face an excruciating silence will know exactly what we mean.

But a new device called ReSpeaker aims to change that. It’s an open source technology that hacks normal objects in your home and allows you to control with them with voice commands, and it’s available from around £60.

We’re not gonna lie, you have to be a bit of a nerd to get the most out of it, but a lot of the fun is in playing around with it to see what you can do, and the flexibility of the device also means there aren’t too many limits to what you can voice control in the environment around you.

Something that’ll make you seem clever in the group chat…

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Chances are that, if you’re using an iPhone, there’s a ton of capability you’re missing out on. Enter “Field Test” mode.

The phone has the capacity to display signal as a percentage, hide your caller ID for specific calls and contacts, screen certain calls so that the caller thinks you are missing their calls but you are actually rejecting them so they don’t bother you, and also has a feature called “call waiting” which notifies you if somebody is trying to call you why you’re already talking to somebody else, and keeps them on the line for as long as you need to finish your current call.

Get full instructions on how to enter “Field Test” mode, here.

Something we highly recommend…

It was World Suicide Prevention Day last Saturday, and given that suicide is the biggest killer of men aged 20-49 in the UK, we made a short film highlighting the need for changing the conversation around mental health so that men feel able to talk about it openly.

We also pulled together some of the best resources out there for men suffering from mental health issues, and encourage anybody who feels as though they need to talk to have a look at the resources that are available.

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