Gardening Tools and Immoral Pleasure-Seekers

Posted by Jake Peterson

https://lifehacker.com/tech/valve-officially-discontinued-the-lcd-steam-deck?utm_medium=RSS

There are a lot of gaming handhelds to choose from right now, but the Steam Deck is undoubtedly a fan-favorite. Just as the Nintendo Switch introduced the world to console gaming on the go, the Steam Deck was the pioneer in bringing PC gaming to a handheld form factor—even if it pushes the definition of "handheld." Part of the initial appeal of the Steam Deck is its price: While you could choose a souped-up model with an OLED display and expanded internal storage, you could also pick up an LCD model with a 256GB SSD at a reasonable $399. For less than the price of a Switch 2, you could have something that plays the entire Steam library, with its huge variation in games. It's a great deal—perhaps too great.

If you go to Valve's official Steam Deck site, and scroll down to see your hardware choices, you'll notice something interesting: While there appear to be many 512GB and 1TB OLED Steam Decks in stock, ready to buy, the entry-level LCD model is "out of stock." Hardware selling out isn't uncommon, of course—other popular devices like the Switch 2 sell out fast, and can sometimes be hard to come by. The assumption then is that Valve will make more LCD Steam Decks, so that gamers can buy into the platform without spending the extra $150 for the 512GB OLED model.

However, it doesn't appear that the LCD Steam Deck is coming back anytime soon—or at all. While it's easy to miss if you're just looking at the buy links themselves, scroll down a bit further on Valve's site, and you'll see the following footnote: "We are no longer producing the Steam Deck LCD 256GB model. Once sold out, it will no longer be available." And seeing as the item is currently listed as out of stock, it seems fair to say that the LCD Steam Deck is no more.

Valve doesn't have an official reason why it is discontinuing the LCD Steam Deck, but some speculate the root cause is rising component prices—namely, RAM and storage costs. These computing parts are skyrocketing in price, which might lead companies like Valve to pare down its hardware selection. Why waste expensive resources on a $399 machine, when you could instead push some of those potential buyers into the $549 machine?

Can you buy the LCD Steam Deck elsewhere?

The short answer? Yes, but I'd encourage you not to. The most reliable seller to purchase a Steam Deck from is Valve itself. Otherwise, you may either overpay for your Steam Deck, or, potentially, get scammed. Take this Amazon listing, for example where the model appears to be $459.99. The seller has misspelled the name of the device, and has labeled it under "Apparel." While it might be tempting to save $90 when compared to the official 512GB OLED model, I'd skip the Amazon option. Another questionable Amazon seller has the 256GB model for $829.99, while selling the 512GB OLED model for $899.99. Again, that's either highway robbery, or a good old fashioned scam.

If you're dead set on not spending $549 on a new Steam Deck, you could look at the used market, but even then, things are rough. People aren't really selling these things, and when they are, they're selling them for quite a bit. You might have some luck on a site like eBay, where I'm currently seeing some OLED Steam Decks selling around $400. But buyer beware: Buying items used through a third-party seller can be risky. Without the proper safety nets, you might be better off stretching for the official hardware from Valve.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/valve-officially-discontinued-the-lcd-steam-deck?utm_medium=RSS

Posted by Beth Skwarecki

https://lifehacker.com/how-useful-are-ankle-weights?utm_medium=RSS

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Ankle weights seem to have tunneled through a wormhole from the 1980s to the present moment, appearing in countless TikToks and Instagram posts. Do they really help tone your legs? Are they worth buying at all? The promises are overrated, but in some cases ankle weights do actually work. Here’s what you need to know.

Where ankle weights work best

Ankle weights’ best use is to add a little bit of resistance to exercises where you are moving your legs against gravity. For example, side-lying leg raises become substantially more work for your muscles with even a pound or two of weight on the ankle that you’re raising in the air. Donkey kicks and hollow body holds would fall into this category as well. Weights like these, with 2.5 pounds per ankle, may be a good option if you're new to strength training or new to these particular exercises.

The ankle weights aren’t necessarily making your ankles or legs work harder, in these examples; they just add resistance to what is still an exercise for your hips, butt, or abs. And the main source of weight is actually your leg itself. If leg raises are challenging, leg raises plus an ankle weight will be more challenging.

These uses of ankle weights make sense, because they’re a way to add resistance over time. To continue progressing, you’ll need to use heavier weights when your current ones become too easy. Eventually, you may get to a point where an ankle weight exercise is no longer challenging and you’ll need to work those same muscles in a different way.

Ankle weights work best for exercises where you're using muscles toward the center of your body (like abs or hips) to move your legs. In these exercises, your legs provide most of the weight; the ankle weight is just adding to the difficulty. Ankle weights being light, you need to put them at the end of a long lever. In a leg raise, your legs are basically a very long third-class lever. Or to put it another way: the farther away a small weight is from your body, the heavier it feels.

When ankle weights won't help

If you’re running, jumping, or walking, ankle weights can make the motion a little bit harder, but they’re probably not a good addition. Think about why you’re doing these exercises in the first place. If your goal with running or walking is to burn calories, you can do that more efficiently by running faster or farther, no ankle weights necessary.

Some trainers even warn that wearing ankle weights while running or walking may set you up for muscle imbalances or for injury; though it’s not clear if that’s really the case or not. I couldn’t find any solid evidence about injury either way, but historian Conor Heffernan pointed me to a 1988 paper that concluded ankle weights don’t provide any significant extra calorie burn, and aren’t worth the potential risk. That may be the source of the warning, which I recall hearing way back in the olden days of the 1990s.

How much a small weight can actually help you

Any time you’re looking at a small weight—whether it’s a pair of ankle weights, or a tiny dumbbell, or anything else—think of it in terms of progressive overload.

Progressive overload is one of the basic principles of strength training. To keep getting results, you have to use heavier and heavier weights over time. That’s how somebody who starts deadlifting with just the bar can end up strong enough to lift hundreds of pounds. Small weights can help you get started on that journey, but they won’t sustain it.

Ankle weights are often just one or two pounds each, although I have a set like this one that can be loaded with about ten pounds if you put all the little sandbag inserts into just one cuff of the pair. It was handy when I was rehabbing an injury; my physical therapist recommended side-lying leg raises. At first I was doing them without added weight, but I ended up needing most of the weights in the set by the time my rehab was through.

Fitness products often exist only because they’re easy to sell

Looking through ads and Instagram posts for this article, it became clear why ankle weights are popular all of a sudden. You can advertise them by putting them on a model with great legs in a snazzy pair of leggings, and having her work out by a beach or in front of a vibrantly colored wall. They just look cool, especially some of the newer styles that look like blocky bangles.

Also, being fairly lightweight, they’re cheaper to manufacture and ship than, say, a kettlebell. So while they may have a place in your workout routine, it would be a mistake to think you’re buying a versatile or long-lived piece of equipment by treating yourself to a pair of ankle weights.

https://lifehacker.com/how-useful-are-ankle-weights?utm_medium=RSS