The 10 Most Popular Recipes of August 2021 - Bon Appetit

The data is in and we're a bit puzzled to be honest: It seems comfort food season started WAY early this year. While we wait for anything less than boiling temps and humid days, our most popular recipes are snugglier than we ever saw coming. Throughout August we all warmed our souls with hot bowls of sweet potato grits and endless helpings of veggie cassoulet studded with crispy Gruyère bits. And when that wasn't quite cheesy enough, we turned to these crunchy, gravity-defying mozzarella fritters. Unsurprisingly, no savory situation could evoke peak comfort food vibes without a follow-up scoop of classic banana pudding or a sticky slice of peach pie. So forget what you heard on the daily forecast, we predict a 100 percent chance of cozy meals beginning…right now. Here are our most popular recipes from August—starting with No. 1.

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Want better selfies? Your iPhone already has this front camera trick - CNET

A selfie in default mode (left) versus a selfie with Mirror Front Camera turned on (right). 

Alison DeNisco Rayome/CNET

The latest version of Apple's iPhone operating system, iOS 14.7, is now available to download (and iOS 15 is just around the corner, likely along with the iPhone 13). No matter what version of the OS you're running, you'll find lots of updated camera tools and features, including improvements to Night Mode and burst photos. But one smaller camera feature may make the biggest difference for your selfie needs: a setting called Mirror Front Camera. 

Mirror Front Camera comes after the iPhone 11's "slofie" slow-motion selfie feature to bring us a subtler -- and, dare I say, more useful -- selfie tool. (It should be noted that it's one of many iOS 14 features that's already been available on Android devices for some time.) 

Read on for everything you need to know about the Mirror Front Camera feature, and how to use it to up your selfie game. 

What exactly does Mirror Front Camera mean? 

You may have already come across this setting in your camera preferences and wondered what it was. When you turn it on and change to your front-facing camera, it will snap a photo that's your mirror image, instead of flipping it as the camera usually does. Some people find this jarring because the photo you take doesn't match the image you see in the viewfinder. 

Ultimately, it may not change your selfie much, but some people may prefer the more familiar reversed version of your face, like looking in a mirror. 

How to use the Mirror Front Camera feature on your iPhone

With iOS 14 installed, the Mirror Front Camera setting is disabled by default. Here's how to turn it on:

Go to Settings > Camera. Under Composition, toggle Mirror Front Camera on. Head back to your camera app, and turn the camera to face yourself. The image will appear as you see yourself in the mirror, instead of flipped as it usually is. 

Here, you can see the side-by-side comparison of a regular selfie and one taken with Mirror Front Camera turned on. 

iOS 14 gives you the choice of mirroring your selfies (right) or keeping them inverted (left).

Patrick Holland/CNET

You can follow the same instructions to turn Mirror Front Camera off and go back to the default selfie setting.

For more, check out iOS 14's best hidden features, every rumor we've heard so far about iOS 15 and when we think the Apple event is happening.

Now playing: Watch this: We found these amazing features in the iOS 15 beta

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Trick Daddy is trending on Twitter for the most unexpected reason - HITC

Cheap Trick to be inducted into Illinois Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame - MyStateline.com

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A Top Trainer Shared a Trick to Improve Your Dumbbell Bench Press - menshealth.com

In a new video on the Athlean-X channel, strength coach Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. breaks down a simple but surprisingly effective way to switch up your dumbbell bench press technique to both reduce pain and discomfort in your training, and enable you to lift heavier.

It's likely, he begins, that you're utilizing a pretty traditional grip right down middle of the dumbbell. He recommends that you shift your grip just a little bit more towards the end, and focus your squeeze through your thumb and forefinger, wrapping your thumb over your forefinger. Then wrap the rest of your fingers around the bar for support.

"What the wrist position does is, it changes what's happening at the end of your wrist, and more importantly, setting up the biomechanics of the press to become more efficient and stronger in that press," he says, explaining that the radius (the bone on the inner side of the forearm) is longer at the end than the ulna, and so gripping the dumbbell in the middle can cause compression where the radius meets the wrist.

"That's not good, especially if you have wrist pain," says Cavaliere. "That's going to feel very uncomfortable." Instead, by adopting this new grip, you'll allow a little bit of space between the radius and the wrist, making for a more comfortable position.

Cavaliere adds that the same principle can be applied to a barbell bench press, with one simple modification: "Go a little narrower on your grip," he says. "The wider I go, the more compression I get at the radial side of the wrist. As I go more and more narrow, I have less compression on that radial side. Find the typical width that's good for you on a bench press, and then just go a little narrower than that to help offload some of that strain and compression."

Philip Ellis Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

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6 tips for establishing your startup's global supply chain - TechCrunch

Jeff Morin Contributor

Jeff Morin is the co-founder and CEO of Liteboxer, an at-home fitness company that creates immersive workouts.

Startups are hard work, but the complexities of global supply chains can make running hardware companies especially difficult. Instead of existing within a codebase behind a screen, the key components of your hardware product can be scattered around the world, subject to the volatility of the global economy.

I’ve spent most of my career establishing global supply chains, setting up manufacturing lines for 3D printers, electric bicycles and home fitness equipment on the ground in Mexico, Hungary, Taiwan and China. I’ve learned the hard way that Murphy’s law is a constant companion in the hardware business.

But after more than a decade of work on three different continents, there are a few lessons I’ve learned that will help you avoid unnecessary mistakes.

Expect cost fluctuations, especially in currency and shipping

Shipping physical products is quite different from “shipping” code — you have to pay a considerable amount of money to transport products around the world. Of course, shipping costs become a line item like any other as they get baked into the overall business plan. The issue is that those costs can change monthly — sometimes drastically.

At this time last year, a shipping container from China cost $3,300. Today, it’s almost $18,000 — a more than fivefold increase in 12 months. It’s safe to assume that most 2020 business plans did not account for such a cost increase for a key line item.

Shipping a buggy hardware product can be exponentially costlier than shipping buggy software. Recalls, angry customers, return shipping and other issues can become existential problems.

Similar issues also arise with currency exchange rates. Contract manufacturers often allow you to maintain cost agreements for any fluctuations below 5%, but the dollar has dropped much more than 5% against the yuan compared to a year ago, and hardware companies have been forced to renegotiate their manufacturing contracts.

As exchange rates become less favorable and shipping costs increase, you have two options: Operate with lower margins, or pass along the cost to the end customer. Neither choice is ideal, but both are better than going bankrupt.

The takeaway is that when you set up your business, you need to prepare for these possibilities. That means operating with enough margin to handle increased costs, or with the confidence that your end customer will be able to handle a higher price.

Overorder critical parts

Over the past year, many businesses have lost billions of dollars in market value because they didn’t order enough semiconductors. As the owner of a hardware company, you will encounter similar risks.

The supply for certain components, like computer chips, can be limited, and shortages can arise quickly if demand increases or supply chains get disrupted. It’s your job to analyze potential choke points in your supply chain and create redundancies around them.

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Extra Crunch roundup: Toast and Freshbook S-1s, pre-pitch tips, flexible funding lessons - TechCrunch

The digital transformation currently sweeping society has likely reached your favorite local restaurant.

Since 2013, Boston-based Toast has offered bars and eateries a software platform that lets them manage orders, payments and deliveries.

Over the last year, its customers have processed more than $38 billion in gross payment volume, so Alex Wilhelm analyzed the company’s S-1 for The Exchange with great interest.

“Toast was last valued at just under $5 billion when it last raised, per Crunchbase data,” he writes. “And folks are saying that it could be worth $20 billion in its debut. Does that square with the numbers?”

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Use discount code ECFriday to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.

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Airbnb, DoorDash and Coinbase each debuted at past Y Combinator Demo Days; as of this writing, they employ a combined 10,000 people.

Today and tomorrow, TechCrunch reporters will cover the proceedings at YC’s Summer 20201 Demo Day. In addition to writing up founder pitches, they’ll also rank their favorites.

Even remotely, I can feel a palpable sense of excitement radiating from our team — anything can happen at YC Demo Day, so sign up for Extra Crunch to follow the action.

Thanks very much for reading; I hope you have an excellent week.

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

How Amazon EC2 grew from a notion into a foundational element of cloud computing

Image Credits: Ron Miller/TechCrunch

In August 2006, AWS activated its EC2 cloud-based virtual computer, a milestone in the cloud infrastructure giant’s development.

“You really can’t overstate what Amazon was able to accomplish,” writes enterprise reporter Ron Miller.

In the 15 years since, EC2 has enabled clients of any size to test and run their own applications on AWS’ virtual machines.

To learn more about a fundamental technological shift that “would help fuel a whole generation of startups,” Ron interviewed EC2 VP Dave Brown, who built and led the Amazon EC2 Frontend team.

3 ways to become a better manager in the work-from-home era

Image Credits: Jasmin Merdan (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images

Most managers agree that OKRs foster transparency and accountability, but running a team effectively has different challenges when workers are attending all-hands meetings from their kitchen tables.

Instead of just discussing key metrics before board meetings or performance reviews, make them part of the day-to-day culture, recommends Jeremy Epstein, Gtmhub’s CMO.

“Strengthen your team by creating authentic workplace transparency using numbers as a universal language and providing meaning behind your team’s work.”

The pre-pitch: 7 ways to build relationships with VCs

Image Credits: Getty Images under an Andrii Yalanskyi (opens in a new window) license

Many founders must overcome a few emotional hurdles before they’re comfortable pitching a potential investor face-to-face.

To alleviate that pressure, Unicorn Capital founder Evan Fisher recommends that entrepreneurs use pre-pitch meetings to build and strengthen relationships before asking for a check:

“This is the ‘we actually aren’t looking for money; we just want to be friends for now’ pitch that gets you on an investor’s radar so that when it’s time to raise your next round, they’ll be far more likely to answer the phone because they actually know who you are.”

Pre-pitches are good for more than curing the jitters: These conversations help founders get a better sense of how VCs think and sometimes lead to serendipitous outcomes.

“Investors are opportunists by necessity,” says Fisher, “so if they like the cut of your business’s jib, you never know — the FOMO might start kicking hard.”

Lessons from COVID: Flexible funding is a must for alternative lenders

Image Credits: MirageC (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

FischerJordan’s Deeba Goyal and Archita Bhandari break down the pandemic’s impact on alternative lenders, specifically what they had to do to survive the crisis, taking a look at smaller lenders including Credibly, Kabbage, Kapitus and BlueVine.

“Only those who were able to find a way through the complexities of their existing capital sources were able to maintain their performance, and the rest were left to perish or find new funding avenues,” they write.

Inside Freshworks’ IPO filing

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Customer engagement software company Freshworks’ S-1 filing depicts a company that’s experiencing accelerating revenue growth, “a great sign for the health of its business,” reports Alex Wilhelm in this morning’s The Exchange.

“Most companies see their growth rates decline as they scale, as larger denominators make growth in percentage terms more difficult.”

Studying the company’s SEC filing, he found that “Freshworks isn’t a company where we need to cut it lots of slack, as we might with an adjusted EBITDA number. It is going public ready for Big Kid metrics.”

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IFA, PSP OFFERING FLOOD PREVENTION AND SAFETY TIPS - wccsradio.com

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Trick Daddy Goes Viral for Discussing His ‘Booty’ Activities - Complex

Trick Daddy isn’t pulling any tricks with his latest viral moment. 

The Miami rap vet appeared on a recent episode of Drink Champs, and found his name all over Twitter after he elaborated on his infamous “Eat a Booty Gang.” And by the sound of it, he wants the gang to be inclusive. 

“It’s the Eat a Booty Gang, I’m building the franchise up now,” Trick shared in a longer version of the viral clip. “Now I’m getting the women to support the Eat a Booty Gang.”

After co-host N.O.R.E. asked Trick to elaborate on what he meant by women supporting the gang, Trick clarified, saying “Yeah, women eat the booty, too. Yeah, I get ate out.”

N.O.R.E. asked Trick if he keeps his legs in the air during the act, to which the rapper replied, “It depends.”

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This phishing attack is using a sneaky trick to steal your passwords, warns Microsoft - ZDNet

Microsoft has warned Office 365 customers that they're being targeted by a widespread phishing campaign aimed at nabbing usernames and passwords. 

The ongoing phishing campaign is using multiple links; clicking on them results in a series of redirections that lead victims to a Google reCAPTCHA page that leads to a bogus login page where Office 365 credentials are stolen.  

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This particular attack relies on the email sales and marketing tool called 'open redirects', which has been abused in the past to redirect a visitor to a trustworthy destination to a malicious site. Google doesn't rate open redirects for Google URLs as a security vulnerability, but it does display a 'redirect notice' in the browser. 

SEE: Ransomware: This new free tool lets you test if your cybersecurity is strong enough to stop an attack

Microsoft warns this feature is being used by the phishing attackers. 

"However, attackers could abuse open redirects to link to a URL in a trusted domain and embed the eventual final malicious URL as a parameter. Such abuse may prevent users and security solutions from quickly recognizing possible malicious intent," the Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team warns. 

This attack's trick relies on the advice for users to hover over a link in an email to check the destination before clicking.

"Once recipients hover their cursor over the link or button in the email, they are shown the full URL. However, since the actors set up open redirect links using a legitimate service, users see a legitimate domain name that is likely associated with a company they know and trust. We believe that attackers abuse this open and reputable platform to attempt evading detection while redirecting potential victims to phishing sites," Microsoft warns. 

"Users trained to hover on links and inspect for malicious artifacts in emails may still see a domain they trust and thus click it," it said. 

Microsoft has found over 350 unique phishing domains used in this campaign, including free email domains, compromised domains, and domains automatically created by the attacker's domain generation algorithm. The email subject headers were tailored to the tool the attacker was impersonating, such as a calendar alert for a Zoom meeting, an Office 365 spam notification, or a notice about the widely used but ill-advised password expiry policy. 

While open redirects aren't new, Microsoft hopped on the issue after noticing a phishing campaign in August that relied on spoofed Microsoft URLs. 

ZDNet Recommends

The Google reCaptcha verification adds to the apparent legitimacy of the site since it is generally used by websites to confirm the user is not a bot. However, in this case, the user has been redirected to a page that looks like a class Microsoft login page and eventually leads to a legitimate page from Sophos, which does provide a service to detect this style of phishing attack.  

SEE: The Privacy Paradox: How can businesses use personal data while also protecting user privacy?

"If the user enters their password, the page refreshes and displays an error message stating that the page timed out or the password was incorrect and that they must enter their password again. This is likely done to get the user to enter their password twice, allowing attackers to ensure they obtain the correct password.

"Once the user enters their password a second time, the page directs to a legitimate Sophos website that claims the email message has been released. This adds another layer of false legitimacy to the phishing campaign."

Google's word on the matter of open redirects is that this is not a security vulnerability, though it admits it can be used to trigger other vulnerabilities. However, Google disputes the idea that hovering over a link in an app to see a destination URL is a useful phishing awareness tip. 

"Open redirectors take you from a Google URL to another website chosen by whoever constructed the link. Some members of the security community argue that the redirectors aid phishing, because users may be inclined to trust the mouse hover tooltip on a link and then fail to examine the address bar once the navigation takes place.

"Our take on this is that tooltips are not a reliable security indicator, and can be tampered with in many ways; so, we invest in technologies to detect and alert users about phishing and abuse, but we generally hold that a small number of properly monitored redirectors offers fairly clear benefits and poses very little practical risk."

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The Source |[WATCH] Trick Daddy On 'Drink Champs': I Get Ate Out - The Source Magazine

Miami legend Trick Daddy is looking to expand the “Eat The Booty” gang franchise, but he admits that he’s not only the president, but also a client.

During his appearance on Drink Champs, the Slip and Slide icon was asked about the “Eat The Booty” gang, but then added that he wanted to add women to the franchise, who he says also engage in booty munching.

“Women eat the booty, too,” Trick Daddy said.  “I get ate out!”

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Padma Lakshmi children’s book serves up memories, food advice and recipes - Chicago Sun-Times

NEW YORK — Neela is a young girl who loves cooking with her mom. Saturday is her favorite day of the week. That’s the day they go to the green market.

So begins Padma Lakshmi’s charming entry into the world of children’s book, “Tomatoes For Neela,” which mixes the author’s memories of family cooking with practical food advice, a nod to farmworkers and even a pair of recipes.

“It is just a very small personal story that centers around a young single mother who also is a recipe writer like me,” says Lakshmi, the host of Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Taste the Nation” on Hulu. “It’s just really about teaching children how to cook from an early age, respecting Mother Nature and eating when things are in season.”

Neela and her mom make a sauce using tomatoes bought from the green market and create enough to jar some for winter, saving it to share with grandmother when she next visits from India. In the meantime, the grandmother gazes down from framed photos, present in spirt. Neela carefully writes down all the recipes.

This cover image released by Viking Books for Young Readers shows “Tomatoes for Neela,” a children’s book written by Padma Lakshmi, with illustrations by Juana Martinez-Neal. The book mixes the author’s memories of cooking with her family with practical food advice, a nod to farmworkers and even a pair of recipes.

AP

There’s also a lesson in tomato history, with Neela discussing the fruit’s origin in Latin America and that some cultures actually feared them. She learns that different types — like heirlooms or cherry — are good for various dishes. She uses plum tomatoes to make her sauce because they have less seeds.

“Through food, my grandmother and my mother taught me so much about life and culture and being a person in the world. And so I’m hoping that, through this book, I can encourage families to actively cook together, to value the recipes that they’ve been making for their family get togethers and also to remember all of the different people who bring us our food and to be mindful of our environment,” says Lakshmi.

The words are brought to life with beautiful artwork by Juana Martinez-Neal, who was awarded a Caldecott Honor for “Alma and How She Got Her Name.” Lakshmi shared an online folder of family photos to help make Neela and her mom resemble the author and her daughter, while Martinez-Neal tapped into her own memories of going to markets in Peru for fresh produce to recreate a bustling green market.

Her images are full of life and textures and movement, giving the reader a sense of a busy kitchen full of love, with warm smells and mom’s bangles creating a gentle rhythm as she slices.

“Through food, my grandmother and my mother taught me so much about life and culture and being a person in the world.” — Padma Lakshmi

“It could feel like something very flat and two dimensional, but we tried to bring it to a full, sensory experience — we have sound, we have taste. We have the feel of everything,” says Martinez-Neal.

The idea of adding farmworkers to the book came from a suggestion by Martinez-Neal. “It’s so easy to forget who is doing that work,” she says. Lakshmi loved the idea and added context and reference material about farmworkers at the end of the book.

“We often don’t consider the many hands that have an impact on our diets, on our daily lives. And what the pandemic has shown us is how valuable everyone in the food chain is and how they should be valued,” says Lakshmi.

The germ of the book was triggered when Lakshmi’s real-life daughter, Krishna, came home several years ago craving a pomegranate. It was summer and her mother explained that pomegranates grow in the fall. Now was the season for tomatoes.

“I wanted to talk about when fruits and vegetables grew in season because, if you’re a kid and everything is available to you all the time, you have no way of knowing why we should eat certain things at certain time,” she says. “Mother Nature has a plan that we should live in harmony with.”

On the last page, Lakshmi dedicated the book to her daughter “who gives meaning to everything,” a fitting thanks for a work from two female artists who are celebrating their families through food.

“It’s a hugely autobiographical book,” says Lakshmi. “I am not a children’s author. I don’t have experience writing for this audience beyond just making up stories at bedtime for my own child. So I needed to write about something I knew.”

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The 10 Best Instagram Recipes From August 2021 - HuffPost

Getty/HuffPost

Three peach recipes made August's top 10 most popular recipes on HuffPost Taste's Instagram.

If you look at HuffPost Taste’s Instagram account, you’ll usually see that our followers are loving recipes for creamy pastas, gooey grilled cheeses and rich chocolate cakes. But this August, it’s clear that everyone’s been on the search for the perfect peach ... recipe.

Sure, the list below features a killer chocolate zucchini cake and a jalapeno-stuffed chicken recipe that’ll brighten up your weeknights, but it’s hard not to notice the three gloriously peachy recipes that make the most of the summer season. Take a look at our most-liked recipes below, and let us know your favorites.

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10. Grilled Blackened Halibut Tacos

Supper With Michelle

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9. Homemade Chocolate Frosty

Half Baked Harvest

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8. Burrata Basil and Peach Panzanella

How Sweet Eats

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7. Rotisserie Chicken Salad

How Sweet Eats

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6. Honey Vanilla Pots de Crème

Love & Olive Oil

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5. Peach Burrata Crostini With Burst Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette

Half Baked Harvest

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4. One Pot Lemon Butter Ricotta and Zucchini Pasta

Half Baked Harvest

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3. Jalapeño Cheddar Stuffed Chicken With Creamed Corn

Half Baked Harvest

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2. Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Oh Sweet Basil

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1. Tomato, Peach and Burrata Salad

Half Baked Harvest

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Tips on what to look for in adult day care providers - Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Dear Savvy Senior: Can you offer any tips on choosing a good adult day care provider for an elderly parent? My 81-year-old father, who just moved in with me, has dementia and needs attention during the day while I’m at work. — Need Assistance

Dear Need: Adult day care services can be a great option for caregivers who work or for those who just need a break during the day. Here’s what you should know, along with some tips to help you find and choose one.

Adult day care

The business of adult day care services has grown rapidly in recent years. According to the National Adult Day Serv­ices Association, there are upward of 4,600 adult day centers across the U.S., the result of a 35% increase in older adults since 2002. Those centers provide services to more than 260,000 participants and family caregivers, which is a whopping 63% increase over the past two decades.

As the name implies, adult day care provides care for seniors who cannot care for themselves at home. While services will vary from center to center, they typically provide personal care, meals and snacks, various activities and social interaction in a safe, supportive environment. Additionally, many centers provide health serv­ices such as medication management, various therapies, exercise and transportation to and from the facility.

Adult day care centers generally operate programs during normal business hours five days a week. However, some centers might offer services in the evenings and on weekends, too.

Costs for care will vary as well, usually between $25 to more than $100 per day (the national average is $75 a day), depending on where you live.

Unfortunately, in most cases original Medicare does not pay for adult day care, but some Medicare Advantage plans and many long-term care insurance policies do. But most seniors or their families pay for care out-of-pocket.

If your dad is lower- income and can’t afford this, state Medicaid programs provide financial assistance if he meets eligibility requirements, and some states have PACE programs that provide financial aid. Contact your state Medicaid office (see Medicaid.gov) for more information. The VA even provides adult day care to eligible veterans enrolled in their Medical Benefits Package. See VA.gov/geriatrics to learn more.

How to choose

Your first step in shopping for an adult day center is to determine the kinds of services your dad needs and that you need as a caregiver. After you do that, here are some tips to help you locate and choose a good provider.

Start by contacting your Area Agency on Aging (call 800-677-1116 to get your local number) to get referrals to adult day service programs in your area. You can also search the National Adult Day Services Association database at NADSA.org/locator.

Once you have a list of a few centers, call them to find out eligibility criteria, whether they offer the types of services your dad needs, whether they are accepting new clients, their hours of operation, whether they’re licensed and/or registered with a state agency (this is not required in all states) and what they charge.

After you identify a few good centers, go in for a visit. Find out about the staffing ratio (at least 1 staff member for every 6 participants is recommended) and what kind of training they have. While you’re there, notice the cleanliness and smell of the facility. Is it homey and inviting? Does the staff seem friendly and knowledgeable? Also, be sure to taste the food, and consider making an unannounced visit.

To help you rate your visit, NADSA offers a helpful checklist of questions to ask at NADSA.org — click on “Site Visit Checklist” under the “For Caregivers” tab.

Then, after your visit, be sure to check their references. Get names and phone numbers of at least two or three families who have used the center you are considering, and call them.

———

After you identify a few good centers, go in for a visit. Find out about the staffing ratio (at least 1 staff member for every 6 participants is recommended) and what kind of training they have. While you’re there, notice the cleanliness and smell of the facility. Is it homey and inviting? Does the staff seem friendly and knowledgeable? Also, be sure to taste the food, and consider making an unannounced visit.

---

Jim Miller is a contributor to NBC-TV’s “Today” program and author of “The Savvy Senior.” Send your questions to Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070; or visit savvysenior.org.

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Terrible TikTok investment tips to steer clear of - MarketWatch

This article is reprinted by permission from NerdWallet. 

This article provides information for educational purposes. NerdWallet does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend specific investments, including stocks, securities or cryptocurrencies.

Do-it-yourself is fine when the stakes are low; everything you need to know about patching drywall is on TikTok. But what about when the stakes are high? Would you rewire your home after watching a few TikTok videos? Probably not, and the same logic goes for financial advice.

Pouring your savings into an investment — or any product — being hawked on social media is generally a bad idea. But how will you know which bits of advice are legitimate, and which are bunk? Below, experts weigh in on the worst investment advice they’ve seen recently on TikTok and other social media.

1. ‘The FIRE movement is for everyone’

FIRE stands for “financial independence, retire early,” and given how the movement has spread on social media, the acronym is apt. Chris Woods, a certified financial planner and founder of LifePoint Financial Group in Alexandria, Virginia, says that many of the core tenets of the FIRE movement are great: They focus on lowering your expenses, saving heavily, putting money into diversified index funds and generating multiple streams of income to help you retire early, which may all be sound financial decisions.

Read: What is true financial freedom?

The problem is, everyone’s financial situation is different. Financial planners spend a lot of time upfront learning as much as they can about someone’s unique financial standing before making any recommendations. And for some, he says, the FIRE movement may be an appropriate goal. But it’s not for everyone, and sound bites from social media influencers can’t take your personal situation into consideration.

“So many people will do what these influencers are saying, even if it’s not the appropriate thing for them,” Woods says. “That’s one of my big overarching disappointments or gripes with the influencers out there. Because a lot of times, they’re talking about this stuff without context.”

The next time you see someone living their best #vanlife and boasting how they retired at 30, remember you’re seeing a highlight reel, Woods says. Their financial situation may have been completely different from yours, and there’s no guarantee what worked for them is right for you.

2. ‘Forget about 401(k)s and IRAs’

There’s a thought out there that boring, long-established wealth-building strategies, such as funding retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs, are outdated.

“This is all so faulty and so bad I don’t know where to start,” says Tiffany Kent, a CFP and portfolio manager at Wealth Engagement LLC in Atlanta.

Kent says that to stand out on social media, someone can’t just talk about typical retirement accounts over and over again, no matter how proven they are. Boring doesn’t inspire viewers to smash that “like” button.

Also see: This financial adviser helps people rebound from hard times. She knows what that’s like

Instead, they talk up new, complicated — and at times confusing — products, simply to stand out from the crowd. Sometimes the ideas are a bit contrarian, other times they’re outright outlandish. But this approach, Kent says, is absolutely the wrong way to get financial advice.

“If it’s boring, it’s good,” Kent says.

3. ‘Precious metals are the best long-term play’

Gene McManus, a CFP, certified public accountant and managing partner at AP Wealth Management in Augusta, Georgia, said by email that he’s seen claims that precious metals IRAs (which invest in gold and silver instead of stocks and bonds) are a better choice than typical IRAs.

He said acolytes of the strategy argue that precious metals IRAs better protect your money from things like inflation, global supply shortages or a collapse of the financial markets.

But McManus disagrees.

“The long-term history and performance of gold and silver do not indicate that they are a rewarding asset class,” he said. “There are short-term periods that they might outperform the S&P 500, but over the long term, they don’t make sense to own, especially exclusively or overweight in a portfolio.”

4. ‘Hundreds of thousands of people can’t be wrong’

It’s true that there’s power in numbers. However, it’s equally fair to say that mob mentality, echo chambers and hype can get in the way of rational decision making. Anthony Trias, a CFP and principal at Stonebridge Financial Group in San Rafael, California, says he’s worked with clients who are investing in stocks they’ve heard mentioned on social media — no matter how staggering the claims of future potential — because of how many people were talking them up.

“There are going to be 300,000 people on social media saying one thing,” Trias says. “But prudent investors block out the noise, do their due diligence and look at who they’re actually listening to.”

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Trias also echoes Woods’ concerns. Validating investment ideas based on social media hype is problematic, he says, because investment decisions should be highly tailored to you and your needs — and that’s just not possible on social media.

Also read: TikTok saved my business: Candy retailer finds internet fame as COVID-19 forces a pivot

5. ‘Your cryptocurrency will absolutely go to the moon’

All the rocket emoji in the world couldn’t give a valueless cryptocurrency long-term staying power, no matter who’s pumping it.

Clayton Moore, founder and CEO at crypto-payment system NetCents Technology, said by email that while engaging platforms like TikTok have been instrumental in spreading the word about cryptocurrencies, they’ve also become breeding grounds for fraud.

“You’ve got to watch out for the crypto influencer who’s just in it for a quick buck,” he said. “The classic pump and dump.”

Read next: Saving for retirement on TikTok? Gen Z invests differently

Moore said it’s common for crypto influencers to accept payment in exchange for making wild claims about a coin, only to abandon their support for it once the check clears.

“If it is too good to be true, 99% of the time, it is,” Moore said.

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Chris Davis writes for NerdWallet. Email: cdavis@nerdwallet.com.

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