Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Friday, July 5, 2024

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 5, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 5, Wordle #1,112! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

---

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of today's letters are from our mnemonic. The other is also pretty common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

As a noun, something you have as a teenager; as a verb, to squeeze or press.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with C. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with H. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is CRUSH.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, which gave me all of the information I needed to guess CRUSH.

Wordle 1,112 3/6

🟨⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

---

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “a first appearance” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was DEBUT.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

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My Favorite Amazon Deal of the Day: Amazon Fire HD 8 Tablet

Prime Day is just around the corner, but early Prime Day and Fourth of July deals are already here. If you're looking for a tablet to do some streaming or social media doom scrolling, the 64GB Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet is $54.99 (originally $129.99).

Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet

8” HD Display, 64 GB, 30% faster processor, designed for portable entertainment, (2022 release)

$54.99 at Amazon

$129.99 Save $75.00

$54.99 at Amazon

$129.99 Save $75.00

The Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet came out in 2022 and succeeded the Amazon Fire 7 tablet, which ironically is $5 more than the Fire HD 8 right now. This Fire HD 8 is one inch bigger, has a faster hexa-core processor (over the quad-core), better resolution with 1,280 by 800 pixels, about three more hours of battery life (between 10 and 13 hours), has a brighter screen, and twice as much storage with the possibility to expand it to 1TB.

The high-definition touch screen is not amazing by any means (neither is the 2GB RAM or 2MP cameras), but for a $54.99 tablet, you'll get great value for your money if you're just looking for something you can carry around to watch your shows or surf the web. This is a great budget tablet, but keep in mind that since it is a Fire Tablet, you'll be limited in terms of the apps you can download. Fire devices are not compatible with Google, so you won't have the Google App Store. You'll still have access to all of the major streaming apps from Amazon's own app store, though.

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Why You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty About Your Screen Time

I write for a living, which means I reflexively spend a good chunk of my day trying to avoid writing. Computers are perfect for this: I have quick access to every distraction you can possibly dream of, all on the device I should in theory be using to write.

Perhaps the best part of this whole arrangement is how easy it is to feel guilty about all of the writing I'm not doing. The best tool for this is the screen time feature offered on Apple and Android devices, which allow you to review how much time you've spent using each app on your device. These are perfect applications for feeling guilty in a way that doesn't really inspire any kind of self reflection or change: they just make me feel bad.

And you know what? I think me feeling guilty, and not doing anything about it, is on some level the reason these apps are built into phone operating systems. Such features subtly push the blame away from the intentionally addictive and habit forming applications I use and toward me.

To make this argument, I'm going to talk about littering. Please don't leave.

Pay no attention to the multinationals behind the curtain

Littering is obviously bad—I'm not going to pretend that it isn't. But a lot of the anti-littering messaging you've seen is funded by the companies that produce the wasteful packaging that ends up on the ground. Put simply: there wouldn't be as much litter if regulations forced companies not to over-package everything, but that would cut into profits. Anti-littering campaigns were a specific corporate tactic to prevent regulation. Here's Bradford Plumer, writing for Mother Jones:

In 1953, the packaging industry—led by American Can Company and Owens-Illinois Glass Company, inventors of the one-way can and bottle, respectively—joined up with other industry leaders, including Coca-Cola and the Dixie Cup Company to form Keep America Beautiful (KAB), which still exists today. KAB was well-funded and started a massive media campaign to rail against bad environmental habits on the part of individuals rather than businesses.

This isn't a conspiracy theory—everyone involved was fairly transparent about their motivations, as Plumer's reporting makes plain. I am not saying that all the people who work for Keep America Beautiful are cynical—I'm sure some sincerely want to reduce litter, and reducing litter is good. But what I am saying is that there is value, for companies, in shifting the blame for litter away from wasteful packaging practices and toward individuals, and that value is the main reasons such large companies are diverting money to such a tactic.

I think the screen time feature on your phone is similar. I am certain that there are people inside both Apple and Google who are sincerely concerned about users' phone habits, and that screen time features exist in part out of those sincere concerns. At the same time, though, this feature plays a trick similar to the anti-littering campaign: to subtly switch the blame for how much time we all spend on our phones away from the tech industry and toward the individual.

It's not about the time, it's about what you do with it

Companies like Google, TikTok, and Facebook employ some of the smartest people on the planet and incentivize them to build software that gets users to spend as much time as possible using their products. Using self control to limit your screen time in that context isn't bringing a knife to a gun fight—it's bringing a water pistol to a thermonuclear war. Tech companies know this—believe me, they obsess over user data more than you could possibly imagine, and they know that screen time as a tool can, at best, help you aim that water pistol a little better.

Put simply: if knowing how much time you looked at your screen really helped you waste less time on your devices, the feature wouldn't exist. I think that there needs to be more regulations around the kinds of tactics applications use to pull us into scrolling trances, though I don't think that's likely to happen anytime soon.

I recently read an article on Simone.org that outlined this all well, in much fewer words than I've used here:

Here’s the truth: Screen time doesn’t matter. It’s not about how much you use your phone. It’s about whether your phone is a needy, attention-sucking vampire. If that’s the case, the only healthy screen time is no screen time. Zero. That’s why the main metric tracked by screen time apps is deceptive: 10 minutes of shooting crack cocaine intravenously are still 10 minutes of shooting crack cocaine intravenously.

I am not going to sit here and tell you which applications are good and which applications are bad—only you can figure that out for yourself. And I'm not going to try to tell you how you should use your device—again, that's on you.

What I am going to do is tell you that there's value to thinking critically about how you're using your technology. Devices are, in theory, a tool. When you use them it should be toward accomplishing a specific goal. That might be writing, an art project, or coding. It also might be relaxing. It is valuable, no matter what your goal is, to be intentional about it. Your attention is valuable—what you do with it literally shapes the person you become.

My advice is to think less about how much time you're spending on your devices and to think more about what you're doing during that time. Two hours spent scrolling through Reddit posts is different than two hours spent reading an ebook. I can go even further: two hours spent scrolling r/all on Reddit is different than two hours spent reading Reddit reviews of a tool you're thinking of buying. The important thing isn't how much time your spend on the device—it's about noticing, at any given moment, whether the time you're currently spending is being spent well.

Believe me: this is going to be an annoying habit to build, and in many ways the task is impossible. But your relationship with technology, like any other relationship, is complicated, and you need to work on it regularly if you want it to be healthy. Keep that in mind, and consider turning off screen time notifications altogether.

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It’s Time to Learn What ‘Core Sleep’ Actually Is

Friends, let's talk about one of the most confusing terms you’ll see on your fitness tracker—specifically your Apple Watch. Next to REM sleep, which you’ve probably heard of, and “deep” sleep, which feels self explanatory, there’s “core” sleep. And if you google what core sleep means, you’ll get a definition that is entirely opposite from how Apple uses the term. So let’s break it down.

The root of the confusion lies in the fact that the term “core sleep” has been used in the scientific literature to mean a few different things. Importantly, it’s not a recognized sleep stage. Apple, on the other hand, decided to rename the sleep stages its watch can detect, and called one of them “core sleep”—but it bears no relation to any of the previous common uses of the term.

"Core sleep" in the Apple Watch is the same as light sleep

Let me give you a straightforward explanation of what you’re seeing when you look at your Apple sleep data. 

Your Apple Watch tries to guess, mainly through your movements, when you’re in each stage of sleep. (To truly know your sleep stages would require a sleep study with more sophisticated equipment, like an electroencephalogram. The watch is just doing its best with the data it has.) 

Apple says their watch can tell the difference between four different states: 

• Awake

• Light (“core”) sleep

• Deep sleep

• REM sleep

These categories roughly correspond to the sleep stages that neuroscientists can observe with polysomnography, which involves hooking you up to an electroencephalogram, or EEG. (That’s the thing where they attach wires to your head). Scientists recognize three stages of non-REM sleep, with the third being described as deep sleep. That means stages 1 and 2, which are sometimes called “light” sleep, are being labeled as “core” sleep by your wearable.  

In other words: Apple's definition of "core sleep" is identical to scientists' definition of "light sleep." It is otherwise known as N2 sleep. (More on that in a minute.)

So why didn’t Apple use the same wording as everyone else? The company says in a document on their sleep stage algorithm that they were worried people would misunderstand the term "light sleep" if they called it that.

The label Core was chosen to avoid possible unintended implications of the term light, because the N2 stage is predominant (often making up more than 50 percent of a night’s sleep), normal, and an important aspect of sleep physiology, containing sleep spindles and K-complexes.   

In other words, they thought we might assume that "light" sleep is less important than "deep" sleep, so they chose a new, important-sounding name to use in place of "light."

A chart on the same page lays it out: non-REM stages 1 and 2 fall under the Apple category of “core” sleep, while stage 3 is “deep” sleep. That’s how Apple defined it in testing: If an EEG said a person was in stage 2 when the watch said they were in “core,” that was counted as a success for the algorithm.

What are the known sleep stages?

Let’s back up to consider what was known about sleep stages before Apple started renaming them. The current scientific understanding, which is based on brain wave patterns that can be read with an EEG, includes these stages: 

Non-REM stage 1 (N1) 

N1 only lasts a few minutes. You’re breathing normally. Your body is beginning to relax, and your brain waves start to look different than they do when you’re awake. This would be considered part of your “light” sleep.

Non-REM stage 2 (N2)

Also usually considered “light” sleep, N2 makes up about half of your sleep time. This stage includes spikes of brain activity called sleep spindles, and distinctive brainwave patterns called K complexes. (These are what the Apple document mentioned above.) This stage of sleep is thought to be when we consolidate our memories. Fun fact: if you grind your teeth in your sleep, it will mostly be in this stage. 

Non-REM stage 3 (N3) 

N3 is often called “deep” sleep, and this stage accounts for about a quarter of your night. It has the slowest brain waves, so it’s sometimes called “slow wave sleep.” It’s hard to wake someone up from this stage, and if you succeed, they’ll be groggy for a little while afterward. This is the stage where the most body repair tends to happen, including muscle recovery, bone growth in children, and immune system strengthening. As we age, we spend less time in N3 and more time in N2.

(There was an older classification that split off the deepest sleep into its own stage, calling it non-REM stage 4, but currently that deepest portion is just considered part of stage 3.) 

REM sleep

REM sleep is so named because this is where we have Rapid Eye Movement. Your body is temporarily paralyzed, except for the eyes and your breathing muscles. This is the stage best known for dreaming (although dreams can occur in other stages as well).

The brain waves of a person in REM sleep look very similar to those of a person who is awake, which is why some sleep-tracking apps show blocks of REM as occurring near the top of the graph, near wakefulness. We don’t usually enter REM sleep until we’ve been through the other stages, and we cycle through these stages all night. Usually REM sleep is fairly short during the beginning of the night, and gets longer with each cycle. 

How much core sleep do I need?

Using Apple's definition, in which core sleep is the same as light sleep, it's normal for almost half of your sleep to be core sleep. Sleep scientists give an approximate breakdown (although the exact numbers may vary from person to person, and your needs aren't always the same every night):

• N1 (very light sleep): About 5% of the total (just a few minutes)

• N2 (light or "core" sleep): About 45%, so just under four hours if you normally sleep for eight hours

• N3 (deep sleep): About 25%, so about two hours if you normally sleep for eight hours

• REM: About 25%, so also about two hours.

Other ways people use the term “core sleep”

I really wish Apple had chosen another term, because the phrase “core sleep” has been used in other ways. It either doesn’t refer to a sleep stage at all, or if it is associated with sleep stages, it’s used to refer to deep sleep stages. 

In the 1980’s, sleep scientist James Horne proposed that your first few sleep cycles (taking up maybe the first five hours of the night) constitute the “core” sleep we all need to function. The rest of the night is “optional” sleep, which ideally we’d still get every night, but which it’s not a big deal to miss out on from time to time. He described this in a 1988 book called Why We Sleep (no relation to the 2017 book by another author) but you can see his earlier paper on the topic here. He uses the terms “obligatory” and “facultative” sleep in that paper, and switched to the core/optional terminology later. 

You’ll also find people using the phrase “core sleep” to refer to everything but light sleep. For example, this paper on how sleep changes as we age compares their findings in terms of sleep stages with Horne’s definition of core sleep. In doing so, they describe core sleep as mainly consisting of stages N3-N4 (in other words, N3 as described above). 

From there, somehow the internet has gotten the idea that N3 and REM are considered “core” sleep. I don’t know how that happened, and I don’t see it when I search the scientific literature. I do see it on “what is core sleep?” junk articles on the websites of companies selling weighted blankets and melatonin gummies. 

For one final, contradictory definition, the phrase “core sleep” is also used by people who are into polyphasic sleep. This is the idea that you can replace a full night’s sleep with several naps during the day, something that biohacker types keep trying to make happen, even though it never pans out. They use the term pretty straightforwardly: If you have a nighttime nap that is longer than your other naps, that’s your “core sleep.” Honestly, that’s a fair use of the word. I'll allow it.

So, to wrap up: Core sleep, if you’re a napper, is the longest block of sleep you get during a day. Core sleep, to scientists who study sleep deprivation, is a hypothesis about which part of a night’s sleep is the most important. But if you’re just here because you were wondering what your Apple sleep app means by "core sleep," it means stages N1-N2, or light sleep.

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Every New Notes App Feature in iOS 18

Notes is quietly one of the most useful apps in the Apple ecosystem. It's one of the best note-taking apps for iPhone, can bring in multiple collaborators, and has plenty of additional features such as a built-in document scanner. With iOS 18, Apple is making Notes even better. Here are the best new Apple Notes features to try out for once you've installed the new OS.

Take Voice notes in iOS

Credit: Pranay Parab

Apple Notes now supports voice recordings in iOS 18. The app allows you to take quick voice notes and embeds them inline into your text. Plus, once a voice note is recorded, you can also share the audio file with others. This means that you don't have to share your entire note just to pass along an audio recording. You can choose any individual voice note and share it with anyone.

To record a voice note, create a new note and tap the paperclip icon, then select Record Audio. Next, hit the red record button when you're ready and start speaking. Tap the pause button to pause a recording or tap Done to finish.

Your iPhone will even transcribe your voice notes

With iOS 18, Notes can also transcribe your voice note for you, saving you the hassle of manually typing out everything you just recorded. This feature is available on iPhone 12 or newer and currently only supports one language—English. That said, it will work with the following regional differences:

• English (Australia)

• English (Canada)

• English (Ireland)

• English (New Zealand)

• English (South Africa)

• English (UK)

• English (U.S.).

Oddly, iPhones also support two additional variations of English, namely English (India) and English (Singapore), but live audio transcription isn't yet available for these.

To transcribe audio in notes, tap on any audio recording in Notes, then the quotation mark at the bottom left of your screen.

Solve math problems

Credit: Pranay Parab

Apple Notes appears to be taking a leaf out of Soulver's book and adding a feature that lets you solve math problems. You can quickly set up a bunch of variables and define their values within notes, such as x=10, y=20, and z=30, and Notes will be able to tell you what x+y+z is. You can also assign full names to your variables and Notes will still perform your calculations just fine. Support includes common math calculations including addition, multiplication, division, and subtraction. Math in notes uses the same tech powering the new Math Notes section of the Calculator app.

Navigate large notes with ease

Notes has allowed you to break your notes down into sections for some time, but adding too many sections used to make your notes hard to skim through. In iOS 18, you can collapse the sections you want to skip, which significantly reduces the amount of scrolling needed to reach the end. Don't worry—collapsing a section of notes won't delete it. To use this feature, apply the Heading style to any section of notes, then tap the heading to collapse it.

Add some color to your notes

Some people like to use different colors when they're typing. Maybe you want to make important parts of your note pop or separate out topics by color. In Notes for iOS 18, you can easily try out different colors by tapping the Aa button from the Notes toolbar above the keyboard, then selecting the circle in the second row. You can choose one of the following options: purple, pink, orange, mint, and blue.

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How to Watch Argentina vs. Ecuador for Free Using a VPN

For those who won't be watching the fireworks on the 4th of July, the Argentina vs. Ecuador quarterfinal match on the Copa America is likely to be just as good of a spectacle. If you're not paying for a streaming subscription to watch the Copa América, you can still catch the games for free using a VPN very similar to the way you can watch the EURO 2024 tournament for free.

How to watch Copa América matches

It's a great summer for soccer fans. The Copa América matches are scheduled for the evening, while the EURO 2024 matches happen in the morning and early afternoon. Similar to EURO 2024, the Copa América matches will be broadcast in English on Fox Sports and Fox Sports 1. Univision holds the Spanish-language rights, so you can watch the games on TUDN, Univision, and TelevisaUnivision (UniMás). For streaming options, the matches are available on FuboTV, Sling TV, TUDN, ViX, and DirecTV Stream.

DirecTV Stream is the only service offering all Copa América matches with a subscription of $79.99 per month. The Fubo Pro subscription, also $79.99 per month, gives you access to all relevant Fox channels and includes a seven-day free trial if you just want to catch a few games. Sling Blue is available for $40 per month, allowing streaming on three devices simultaneously. ViX Premium, starting at $4.99 per month with ads, also streams on three screens but keep in mind that the commentary will be in Spanish.

How to stream Argentina vs. Ecuador for free using a VPN

The quarter-final games start July 4th at 9:00 pm ET with Argentina vs. Ecuador. The World Cup champions Argentina managed to win all of their games from their group and finish first in Group A. Ecuador, on the other hand, finished second in Group B after losing to Venezuela and tying with Mexico. However, the Ecuadorians are still a strong team currently in fifth place in the World Cup qualifiers. Argentina should still be able to win, but it won't be as easy as their Group A games.

To watch the game for free, head over to Sportitallia, who are streaming all of the Copa America matches for free in Italy. Yes, you might not be physically in Italy, but that's where a VPN can come in clutch. Express VPN is our favorite VPN for bypassing geo-blocking restrictions. It will run you $12.95 per month, $9.99 per month for six months, or they also offer an annual plan for $8.32. You can see our comparison of ExpressVPN with NordVPN (another top VPN provider) here. Once you have ExpressVPN, open the app and go to Sportitallia on the same device (you'll probably need your browser to translate to English unless you speak Italian), and you'll be able to watch the Copa America matches for free.

The Copa América 2024 match schedule

Thursday, July 4

• 09:00 PM ET: Argentina vs. Ecuador (FOX, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Friday, July 5

• 09:00 PM ET: Venezuela vs. Canada (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Saturday, July 6

• 06:00 PM ET: Group D winners vs. Panama (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

• 09:00 PM ET: Uruguay vs. Group D runner-up (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Tuesday, July 9

• 08:00 PM ET: Argentina/Ecuador vs. Venezuela/Canada (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Wednesday, July 10

• 08:00 PM ET: TBD vs. TBD (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Saturday, July 13

• 08:00 PM ET: TBD vs. TBD (FS1, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

Sunday, July 14

• 08:00 PM ET: TBD vs. TBD (FOX, Univision, TUDN, Fubo, DirecTV Stream, Sling Blue)

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Proton Just Launched a More Private Version of Google Docs

Google Docs has been one of the go-to options for online collaboration for years. It's integrated into Google Drive, it's feature-rich, and it makes it dead easy to collaborate with others. But, Proton is—once again—pushing its way in on Google’s turf with a new privacy-focused alternative thanks to today’s launch of Docs in Proton Drive.

According to the launch announcement, Docs in Proton Drive will allow users to take full advantage of many of the same collaborative features that make Google Docs so enticing, all while offering better privacy features, including end-to-end encryption on all your documents. This should make Docs in Proton Drive a welcome option for those who are working with more sensitive information, both at work and home.

The main features available with Docs in Proton Drive include rich text editing, with the ability to create and edit documents using a variety of formatting options, as well as file compatibility for multiple formats, including Microsoft’s .docx. In other words, it should seamlessly integrate with any work you might already have in other programs. Proton also says that you’ll be able to add comments, reply to them, and even mark them as resolved to help create a collaborative environment.

Credit: Proton

Docs in Proton Drive will also support the option to embed images and invite various collaborators, though they will need at least a free Proton account so the company can ensure the secure environment remains intact. Further, you’ll be able to see who is viewing the document, as well as where they are working, using similar collaborative cursors to what's in Google Docs.

The launch of Docs in Proton Drive builds off Proton’s recent acquisition of Standard Notes, an encrypted notes app. The company considers it a major milestone in the ongoing development of the Proton ecosystem, and it says that Docs will offer full support for markdown, code blocks, checklists, and more at launch.

These are all features already present in Google Docs, which is what makes it such an enticing option for collaborators. By offering such a high level of parity at launch, Proton is ensuring a strong start for Docs in Proton Drive, ensuring users who wish to leave Google Docs behind won't lose out on any of the necessary features they already relying on.

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Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Wednesday, July 3, 2024

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 3, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 3, Wordle #1,110! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

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Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of today's letters are from our mnemonic. The other is fairly common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

This is a lower body part, colloquially.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There is one repeated letter today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with T. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with H. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is THIGH.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, which left only two possible solutions—and I guessed THIGH first as the more common word.

Wordle 1,110 3/6

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

---

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was harder. The hint was “can be made of ivory or gold and embedded” and the answer contained four common letters and one uncommon letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was INLAY.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

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The Best Items to Help Organize Your Disaster of a Desk

We all want to pretend like the kitchen is the heart of the home, but for a lot of us, it's our desk. It's also supposed to be a haven of productivity, and it probably is, but it could always be better. Try a few of these updates to improve the organization of your desk—whether at home or the office—while also making it an all-around more pleasant place to work.

Raise your computer

Look at the way you're interacting with your laptop. Are you kind of hunched up over it while it takes up a bunch of space? No good. Getting a laptop stand has a bunch of benefits, like making you sit a little straighter, helping you relax your arms, preventing your computer from overheated, and protecting it from accidental spills. Plus, it frees up space on the desk that you can use for other things, like the organizational tools below.

You really only need something simple, so try something like this:

Nulaxy Laptop Stand, Detachable Ergonomic Laptop Mount

$15.99 at Amazon

$15.99 at Amazon

Your desk also needs (a lot of) storage

Next, it's time to overhaul your storage situation. There's been a lot of research into how clutter impacts your wellbeing and productivity (and vice versa), but it doesn't take a scientist to know that when your space is disorganized, you're just not going to be as productive as you could be. It's distracting and draining to see a mess all day and it makes it harder to access the tools you need to get your work done.

Organizing that desk can help you be more productive, so use a decluttering method to get rid of anything you don't need. Then, follow the rules of the Organizational Triangle, specifically the ones that dictate that everything you own must have a designated storage space and must be stored with similar objects.

A major component of doing all that is having the right kind of storage boxes and solutions at hand. For a desk, you need small containers that will hold various office supplies. Try something like these:

• A wire mesh organizer with slots for pens and pencils, a small shelf for standing objects, smaller holders for tape and other littler items, and a sliding drawer for tools like binder clips. ($11.99)

• A larger wire mesh organizer with slots for paper goods and books, a larger shelf for flat items, a sectioned drawer for small objects, and a side holder for taller utensils. ($23.26)

• An under-desk drawer system, also made of wire mesh, with two layers and divided drawers to store and separate tools of all sizes while still saving desktop space. ($33.99)

• 16 stackable acrylic drawers to organize smaller items while still keeping them in view. ($34.94)

Improve your lighting situation

There's also been significant research conducted on how lighting affects productivity, but once again, you don't need to read about it in a peer-reviewed journal to know you do better work when you can see what you're doing. I know I feel lazy when I work in darker environments, which is why I am such a big proponent of having little lamps all over.

Since our goal here is to organize your space and make it more productive, try this lamp, which has storage compartments in its base that are perfect for holding sticky notes, pens, and other small objects. It also has an outlet and a USB port so you can charge your devices.

lianheng Desk Lamp Cute for Small Space, Lamp Desk with USB Port and Outlet

$20.99 at Amazon

$20.99 at Amazon

Your desk's tech needs organization, too

Your desk is covered in tech. There's your computer, maybe a separate keyboard and mouse, your tablet, your phone, and then everything else you have plugged in, like clocks, lamps, or smart home devices. It all needs some help to prevent the formation of a rat's nest of cords.

I swear by the Smartish magnetic cord holder. It looks kind of like a rock, but it's actually a big magnet. You can just toss your charging cords over it and they'll stay in place. Plus, it comes in muted, varied colors, so it is pleasing to the eye.

Smartish Magnetic Cord Holder - Bigger Cable Wrangler

$39.98 at Amazon

$39.98 at Amazon

For the bigger cords that dangle off the desk, I recommend individual, adhesive-backed holders. The individual ones are better than the long, multi-slot ones because you can arrange them in a way that makes sense based on your personal desk setup. They can stick to the top or side of the desk, snap open easily so a cord can get threaded through, and prevent it from sliding all over or getting jumbled up with other cords.

PZOZ 6 Pack Cord Organizer, Adhesive Charger Cable Clips

$9.98

$15.99 Save $6.01

$9.98

$15.99 Save $6.01

Other desk organization tips

To truly embrace the system of making sure everything has a designated place and storing similar items together, you'll need to use all of those little compartments and drawers. But you also need to know what's in them. It doesn't hurt to pick up a little label maker ($15.99) to keep everything identified.

Finally, it might seem obvious, but my messy desk changed for the better when I finally got a little garbage can for underneath it instead of relying on myself to carry all my trash to my main garbage every few hours. Sometimes, you're just working for too long and you don't feel like doing that. A mini can will get the trash off your desk right away, keeping it clean so you can focus on work. I like this set of two metal mesh ones for $16.49.

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The Best Kids' Shows Are on Apple TV+

There's no denying that PBS Kids, the home of Daniel Tiger, was once the gold standard for children's programming. Unfortunately, many of their shows now feel recycled or like they're spoon-feeding their audience. For example, they've turned Elmo and Cookie Monster into transforming robots. A parent can't help but wonder if they're more interested in selling toys than entertaining kids. 

Apple TV+ has quickly (and quietly) been overtaking PBS' throne in quality programming for kids, bringing considerable value to this parent's dwindling streaming budget. Several creatives behind Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood have their own programs on the streaming service, and the shows are targeted toward specific age groups, not just preschoolers.

Toddlers and preschoolers

Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show

After playing 30 Rock's Kenneth Parcell with "aw-shucks" aplomb, Jack McBrayer practically seemed destined to host a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood-type show. Here, he plays a version of himself, who also happens to be the kindest resident of Clover Grove, and spreads his fondness for others around his colorful hometown. Behind the scenes, McBrayer co-created this musical show (with songs by pop group OK Go) with Angela C. Santomero, the mind behind Blue's Clues and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. According to my oldest son, this program is strictly for preschoolers, as he doesn't enjoy the show as much as his younger brother does. 

Frog and Toad

Every streaming service has a children's series based on a book. Netflix has Captain Underpants, and Prime Video has If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and each show translates its source material to the screen with varying degrees of success. Apple TV+ has Frog and Toad, which captures what made Arnold Lobel's award-winning series so delightful to read, from the color palette of its illustrations to its contagious positivity. The show moves at the same pace as your preschooler, so their senses aren't overloaded, and its core themes about communication and embracing differences are slipped in subtly. Both my sons love it. Don't be surprised if this becomes the next kids' show you watch without your kids.

Older kids

Stillwater

From each hair on the titular panda's face to the blades of grass that move with the breeze, Stillwater is far too beautiful for children's television animation. Even its sound design is soothing, which is on purpose, given the show's premise. Each episode deals with a problem that one of Stillwater's child neighbors brings to them. Rather than letting their emotions take over, he supports them in finding a solution by taking a deep breath and looking at the problem from a different perspective, offering a way to navigate complicated feelings so viewers can work on becoming more self-aware humans. Surprisingly, my kids love this show, particularly the beautiful fables Stillwater tells his young neighbors to get his point across.

Camp Snoopy

When Apple TV+ announced it was becoming the new streaming home for all things Peanuts, I wondered why, considering that most of the television specials had their heyday in the '70s and '80s. I obviously underestimated Snoopy's power, especially considering parents were up in arms when word got out that A Charlie Brown Christmas wouldn't be on broadcast television because of the arrangement.

The agreement also allows Apple to create new content featuring Charles Schultz's characters. Their most recent offering is Camp Snoopy, which follows Charlie Brown and siblings Lucy and Linus Van Pelt to the great outdoors. There are the usual shenanigans from Snoopy and Woodstock (which drew my kids in), but the other characters have issues of their own, such as getting homesick or fear of trying new things, that are dealt with gracefully.

Tiny World

Who needs to watch Honey, I Shrunk the Kids when the documentary program Tiny World breaks down the microscopic ecosystems of the jungle, savannah, and outback for viewers? Soothingly narrated by Paul Rudd, the series offers fantastic images they wouldn't likely see anywhere else to captivate your child's imagination. I recommend waiting to watch this on your new big-screen TV instead of your iPad, as the detail in these images is enough to make your family's jaw drop.

Tweens

Ghostwriter

My oldest son, a bookworm by his own admission, dove right into this reboot of the '90s live-action series about a group of kids who solve mysteries with literary characters mysteriously brought to life. He was caught up in solving the identity of the titular character, who communicates with the four young detectives through spilled drinks and a mysterious typewriter, as well as the other themes dominating the character's personal lives (like grief, for example). The greatest trick this show pulls off is making classic stories like The Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland relevant when so many other characters (and toys) vie for your child's attention.

Circuit Breakers

Goosebumps. Are You Afraid of the Dark? In the '90s, there was no shortage of creepy anthology shows aimed at tweens. Now, there is Circuit Breakers, which focuses on the effects of using technology to solve kid-related problems, such as overbearing parents or waiting for your growth spurt. It's unusual content from a technology company, especially one known for policing its adult content for disparaging remarks that its creators say on-air. It's still refreshing that this exists, and, unlike its '90s predecessors, there are no jump scares or monsters to impede your child's enjoyment.

Wolfboy and the Everything Factory

Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices one of the characters in this animated show about a creative kid sent to boarding school to make friends. However, he wears a wolf mask (hence the nickname Wolfboy), so he doesn't quite fit in. He finds his tribe inside a magical portal in the woods near his school and finds the Everything Factory, where everything on the Earth's surface, from clouds to trees, is manufactured. The show has an Adventure Time vibe, but it feels like something one of my boys would make in a comic book. 

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The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: The Tiny Green Mall Wizard

Welcome to the first annual Memey awards, where the memes of the summer compete for the coveted title of "Meme of the Summer."

I looked at every single meme posted on the internet over the last year and winnowed down 8 billion wannabes to arrive at the top three! But there can be only one winner of this prestigious honor that I made up a few minutes ago. 

And the winner is: 

The #1 meme of the summer: Tiny Green Mall Wizard

A Polish TikToker named Crawly captured the world’s imagination and the title “meme of the summer” this month by dressing up as a tiny green gnome and delighting/terrorizing people at shopping malls. It’s entirely a visual joke, so you need to click on one of the videos to get it. 

Crawly’s videos have become popular enough to inspire others to try to get into the act, and accounts of “knights” vowing to catch the little green fella have popped up. So has a “knights vs. gnomes” divide. As is the natural order of these things, the knight accounts are neither funny nor interesting and the knights vs. gnomes thing is painfully dull. It’s only a matter of time until a fast food company or energy drink does a stupid gnome-related thing and the joke becomes entirely played-out.

But until then, you gotta appreciate the work of Crawly. I looked through his feed and he actually honed his craft over the last couple years. His earlier videos have the “running around in a mall acting weird” part in place, and some got a lot of traffic, but they lean toward troubling or disturbing instead of funny. But the gnome eventually struck just the level of whimsy for it to break international. 

Runner-up meme of the summer: “90s Sitcom when”

This little sub-genre of TikTok video began when @darealtaah posted a video labeled "90s sitcom: the main antagonist was under the table the whole time and heard y'all whole plan,” in which he enacts the shot. But the genius part is using the perfect musical sting. In this case, from Family Matters to make the point. This led to imitations/tributes like this more poignant takes like “90s sitcoms when the friend overhears them talking about him in the closet" and “in a 90s sitcom at the sleepover and your friends are trying cigarettes for the first time and you have to sneak away to go call your dad.” For reference, here’s the original clip:

Bronze medal summer meme: Mike Epps Dancing

A brief clip of Mike Epps in a blue suit dancing first appeared in Kendrick Lamar’s 2013 video “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe.” It marinated for more than a decade and is now taking off. There’s videos that add captions like “Me n bro at his wedding knowing we gotta 2 man after” and videos of people imitating Epps’ moves in the video. 

Thank you for attending the first annual Memeys. There will be no glamorous afterparty.

Do you have “cousin face?” Also: What is cousin face?

Tiktoker Evie Barenberg recently identified a kind of face: cousin face. Like the name suggests, a person has “cousin face” if they look like someone’s cousin. As Evie puts it: “Last night I was introduced to a friend of friend, and I was like, ‘Have we met before? Because you look familiar.’ She was like, ‘that’s because I have cousin face … everyone’s always like, ‘you look like my cousin’ or ‘you look like my cousin’s cousin.’ The twist to the story: Evie herself has cousin face. She looks like my cousin for real. According to a commenter on Evie’s post, cousin face eventually becomes “generic actress face” around your 40s, so you can look forward to random people stopping you to say you look like different actresses.

Scrambled pancakes: innovation or abomination?

People online are weird about their food. Some people make up weird ways to alter foods that are fine as they are then smugly announce they've discovered the right way to make something. Then other people get weirdly angry about it and leave angry comments. Somehow, this results in assholes in Palo Alto making money.

Anyway, let's talk about “scrambled pancakes.” 

Here’s how you make scrambled pancakes: Instead of pouring the pancake mix into a skillet and letting it form into a pancake like a normal person, you pour it in and mix it around like scrambled eggs and end up with pancake pellets. 

Archived chef started the controversy by showing off her recipe. It might not have made people so angry if they didn’t say everyone else was “making pancakes wrong." Even though they ended the video with "psych—do not try this, it was not good," many people didn't seem to get far enough into it before rage-commenting things like, “this is a crime” and “who hurt you?” Whereas others said things like, “it’s actually good.” 

Viral video of the week: AI is ruining the internet

Youtuber Drew Gooden consistently posts entertaining comedy about popular culture, amusing videos like "I watched the endings of 10 terrible Christmas movies" and "I took Ninja's Masterclass and it ruined my life." This week's viral video is amusing but also makes some interesting observations about artificial intelligence eating its own tail and sucking the internet down a hole from which it may never escape. AI art is "training" on other AI art, solidifying weird hands, extra limbs, and that glossy AI-style that is at once entirely bland and deeply unsettling. Bots are using social media to react to content created by other bots, who use that feedback to create content that's even more appealing to bots. The only humans involved in the process are people who are falling for "get rich with AI" schemes and flooding the zone with crappy shit no one will ever buy while drowning out the people who are actually creating art that trains the AI. Anyway, it's a good watch, especially the conclusion, in which Gooden proves his point by asking AI to write a funny ending to his YouTube video. Spoiler: It's not funny at all.

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The Best Celestial Events to Watch for in July

July isn't the most exciting month of the year for stargazing and plant-finding, but there are a handful of celestial events worth putting on your calendar in the coming weeks, including the meeting of multiple meteor showers leading up to the peak of the Perseids in mid-August.

Here's when (and where) to look up.

July 2–4: Moon and Jupiter join up

Mars and Jupiter are moving closer together from July to mid-August, and the latter will be particularly bright in the early morning hours of July 2–4 and close to the moon. EarthSky has several helpful diagrams for where those in the northern hemisphere should look in the hours before sunrise to spot Jupiter, Mars, and the Pleiades star cluster.

July 21: Full Buck Moon

This month's full moon is expected to reach peak illumination at 6:14 am ET on July 21. The Buck Moon, also often known as the Thunder Moon, is believed to have gotten its name from the Native American lunar calendar and aligns with the time of year in which buck antlers are fully grown.

The 2024 Buck Moon is not a supermoon, but it will still be visible in the southeast after sunset.

July 29–30: Delta Aquariids peak

The Delta Aquariids will be active from July 18 to Aug. 21 with an expected peak on the nights of July 29 and 30. This meteor shower is fainter than some others throughout the year and is typically more visible in the southern hemisphere at a max rate of 15–20 meteors per hour. The moon will be only 30% full during the peak, and you may be able to spot the Delta Aquariids in the southwestern sky, particularly if you're in the southern United States.

Note that the Perseids—typically the best show of the summer—begins on July 14 with a peak expected in mid-August and may be mixed in with the Aquariids.

July 30: Alpha Capricornids peak

The Capricornids, active from July 7 to Aug. 15, are small in number but very bright. You're unlikely to see more than five per hour even during the peak, but the shower is visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and the sky will be relatively dark (with the moon 20% full) during the shower's peak. Estimates of activity vary, but the best time to view it is in the final days of July around 4 a.m. ET.

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