Technologies

Let’s Not Forget About Wordle

The feelings we had earlier this year are needed more than ever.

About 100 years ago — or, that’s how long it feels — we were all together, playing Wordle. Well, we weren’t technically together. We were in sunny places, snowy places, other countries, commuting, staying at home. We were together, though. In a sense. And we weren’t screaming.

Little score grids popping up everywhere, instead of historical face filters or randomly generated AI art, or snippets of chatbot-generated text. These grids, these scores. Wordle swept through an Omicron winter where flights were canceled, trips postponed, returns to work delayed again. It was like bread-baking 2.0. Just another viral pandemic moment.

The game was acquired by The New York Times in early February, and I was ready to say goodbye to a moment I always suspected would end sometime. And it did: Scores stopped being shared. Players dwindled. I eventually stopped playing regularly sometime in the late spring, I don’t know when.

I want to go back to that moment. I remember what was going on: I was depressed. I felt disconnected from friends, from family, from anyone. I put random things on Facebook so I could feel like I did something, for just a few moments, to reach out. For a while, it was random food shots of me putting chili crisp in oatmeal. Then it was Wordle scores. I found a little community of old friends who wrote back and shared theirs. We nodded our virtual heads. We connected, just a bit.

These moments may seem frivolous. They’re not. At the end of 2022, where are we? Twitter has been acquired, gutted, and is slowly being transformed. Migrations away from Twitter (or Facebook) to constellations of new platforms, strange new worlds, places like Mastodon or Hive or Post. Social media, at the end of 2022, feels like it’s either on its last legs or struggling to be reborn as something strange, new and — yes, to me — alien.

With everything that 2022 ended up becoming, something like Wordle feels like a ridiculous little footnote, utterly unimportant, perhaps completely pointless. I still think of it as a little spark of connection. A hope for making people feel like they can reach out to each other without hating or escalating or destroying. The whole original idea of social media that seemed so appealing, maybe, a long time ago, was that it could bring familiar faces together and, for just a few moments, create a sensation of connection. My games of Wordle, along with a few special trips into VR with friends, and a few lingering Zooms, were some of the few moments that did that. For all we’re rushing out to see people and connect again in the real world, we forget the moments when connecting virtually actually worked.

I read an article in The Atlantic the other day that spoke deeply to me, about how we’re haunted by the ghosts of 2019. I am. Life in 2022, trying to go back to «normal,» has felt uncanny. I commute now. I’ve gone on flights. I’ve gone to the UK again. None of it felt normal. Some of it felt familiar. Echoes of the old, overlaps of the new.

Slowly but surely, we’re returning to a strange version of the world we once knew — or trying to. How do I move forward here?

I hope, in our rush to return to «normal,» we stay connected to the strange rituals that brought us together in our lowest moments. It doesn’t have to be Wordle — that’s just a word game gone viral. But as we reinvent how we communicate online — via social media or metaverses — I’ll take any help I can get. Show me how we could reconnect and not feel alienated. Wordle was lightning in a bottle, and even though I’ve said goodbye to what it was in that moment, I’ll always be searching for that feeling again.

Technologies

Facebook Brings Back Local Job Listings: How to Apply

One of Facebook’s most practical features from 2022 is being revived by Meta.

On the hunt for work? A Local Jobs search is being rolled out by Meta to make it easier for people in the US to discover and apply for nearby work directly on Facebook. The feature is inside Facebook Marketplace, Groups and Pages, Meta said last week, letting employers post openings and job seekers filter roles by distance, category or employment type.

You can apply or message employers directly through Facebook Messenger, while employers can publish job listings with just a few taps — similar to how you would post items for sale on Marketplace.

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Facebook offered a Jobs feature before discontinuing it in 2022, pushing business hiring toward its other platforms. Its return suggests Meta is attempting to expand Facebook’s usefulness beyond social networking and to position it once again as a hub for community-driven opportunities.

«We’ve always been about connecting with people, whether through shared interests or key life events,» the press release states. «Now, if you’re looking for entry-level, trade and service industry employment in your community, Facebook can help you connect with local people and small businesses who are hiring.»

How to get started with Local Jobs on Facebook

According to Meta, Local Jobs will appear as a dedicated section in Facebook Marketplace starting this week. If you’re 18 or older, you can:

Tap the Marketplace tab on the Facebook app or website.
Select Jobs to browse available positions nearby.
Use filters for job type, category and distance.
Tap Apply or message the employer directly via Messenger.

Businesses and page admins can post jobs by creating a new listing in Marketplace or from their Facebook Page. Listings can include job details, pay range, and scheduling information and will appear in local searches automatically.

The Local Jobs feature is rolling out across the US now, with Meta saying it plans to expand it in the months ahead.

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.