Have you ever wanted to sign up for an online service but you didnt want to provide your real email address as part of the process?
Theres a good chance your email address has your actual name in it. Or perhaps you want to avoid the risk of getting spammed. What if youd rather just sign up privately and have a quick no more emails please button?
Thats precisely where a reliable email forwarding service can save the day. It empowers you to create a special disguised email address and then use it when signing up with a new app, services, or website.
Youll still get any emails sent to the anonymous email address in your normal email inboxbut the service you sign up with wont ever see your real address, and you can turn off the incoming emails whenever you like.
Most such services require a payment, and they aren’t all trustworthy. But Ive got a great exception to recommend.
Unearth all sorts of fantastic tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A useful new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday!
Protect your privacy with anonymous email addresses
The best email-masking service for casual, everyday purposes is SimpleLogin. Its owned by Protona reputable company with a history of trust around the privacy-focused ProtonMail and ProtonVPN services.
With a free SimpleLogin account, you can create up to 10 disguised email aliases for free. You can then use them wherever you want online to shield your real email address.
You can get started in about 30 seconds:
Go to the SimpleLogin website and sign up for an account. Just provide your real email address (here, at least, lest you be unable to receive any of your fake-address forwarding messages)then choose a password and click a link sent to your real email account to confirm.
Click Random Alias on the SimpleLogin dashboard to create your first new random email alias. (There are other options, tooand a nice little tutorial.)
Provide that email alias to any website while creating an account instead of your actual, real address.
~simplelogin.pngSimpleLogin makes it easy to create and copy privacy-minded masked addresses.~
Thats it! You can manage email addresses on the SimpleLogin sitefor example, you can click a switch and stop receiving new emails sent to the alias. Its very helpful for avoiding spam.
SimpleLogin is available on the web as well as through an Android app and iPhone app, if you’d rather.
The service is free for up to 10 aliases. For $36 per year, you can get unlimited aliases and more features, including the premium version of the Proton Pass password manager.
SimpleLogins privacy policy looks great. The service says it never keeps your emails, and it does not log your IP address.
Treat yourself to even more tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletterone new off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday and an instant introduction to an exceptional audio tool to start!
A few years ago, DEI pledges and conversations about allyship were everywhere. But with the second Trump administration, many companies have either explicitly cut these programs or let them fade away quietly.
Yet, the issues that made DEI initiatives necessary in the first place have not vanished and minority groups continue to face discrimination in the workplace and beyond. How can individualsboth managers and employeescontinue to be allies at a time when it isnt at the forefront of the conversation?
One potential source of inspiration is Lady Gaga, who has been a consistently staunch advocate and ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Recently, shes been using her platform to speak out on behalf of trans people as their rights and lives are under attack.
Lady Gagas Grammy Speech and Interview with Zane Lowe
This February, the 67th Grammy Awards aired shortly after President Trump issued an executive order declaring the U.S. only recognizes two sexes (despite overwhelming scientific evidence).
So when Lady Gaga won the award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Bruno Mars, she took her moment on stage to validate the trans community: I just want to say tonight that trans people are not invisible, Gaga said. Trans people deserve love. The queer community deserves to be lifted up. Music is love.
In March, Lady Gaga sat down with DJ Zane Lowe to chat about her upcoming album, Mayhem. During the interview, she reflected on her Grammy speech and affirmed that the attack on trans people is ongoing.
What trans people are being faced with in this world is completely unfair, wrong, and theres this violence thats taking place on a daily basis in their lives, Gaga said. I think that we all need to support trans people and each other to know that they deserve to be supported and loved and protected and lifted up.
Lady Gagas Legacy of LGBTQ+ Advocacy
Gagas recent remarks are not the first time shed advocated for the LGBTQ+ community. In 2009, when Gaga first rose to prominence, she immediately became subject to rumors that she was assigned male at birth. Rather than denying the claim, Gaga instead told Anderson Cooper that maybe the rumors were true and Would it be so terrible?a response that was highly impactful to trans fans at the time.
Gaga also spoke out against Dont Ask, Dont Tell, bringing four LGBT soldiers who had been discharged to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and headlining a rally calling for the act to be repealed.
In 2024, trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney received online abuse for an International Womens Day post; Lady Gaga responded on her own Instagram, calling out not just those attacking Mulvaney, but also the medias framing of their actions as backlash rather than hatred or violence.
Lessons in Advocacy and Allyship from Lady Gaga
There isnt one definition or way to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ (or any) community. However, a survey of LGBTQ+ individuals about how they define allyship identified a few common themes, and Lady Gaga lives out many of them.
Advocacy and allyship require action.
Accepting, validating, and respecting the identities of LGBTQ+ people is foundational to being a strong ally, but its not enough on its own. A good ally takes action through public statements, advocacy, and education over the long term.
From the beginning of her career, Lady Gaga has taken action on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community, whether it’s validating trans people at a time when they feel attacked and alone in 2025 or speaking at the National Equality March on Washington in 2009.
A good ally respects all lived experiences and never stops listening and learning.
In her interview with Lowe, Gaga talked about how, as an ally, its essential to continue learning and understanding the stories of others: What every community that is oppressed goes through is different. It’s all unique experience, and then there’s individual people and everyone’s individual experience is different.
Gaga called learning peoples stories a great gift that has taught her a lot about oppression and what she can do to help.
An ally uses their privilege to help others.
Gaga regularly recognizes her privilege as a cis woman and as a person with a platform, and uses these advantages to help challenge systemic injustices and advocate for others.
In 2011, following a fans death by suicide, Lady Gaga met with President Obama to urge him to do more to protect children against bullying. In 2012, she and her mother founded the Born This Way Foundation to connect young people to mental health resources and destigmatize mental health.
Most people dont get a chance to tell a roomful of musicians and television viewers all over the world whatever they want, so when all eyes were on Lady Gaga at this year’s Grammys, she used her moment to speak out for trans people.
Lady Gaga shows that true allyship is not performative but an ongoing, active commitment to justice.
Did everyone get the Microsoft 365 rate-hike notice? The personal plan is going from $70 a year to $100 a year.
According to the email, my financial commitment is getting me secure cloud storage, advanced security for your data and devices, and cutting-edge AI-powered features, among other goodies.
But the real reason I subscribe? Microsoft Word. We’ve all used it and many of us rely on it. But many people even arent using all the bells and whistles that come with Word and the larger Microsoft 365 package.
So as Microsoft hits us with a price hike to go along with all the other price hikes consumers have been facing in the past year, now might be the perfect time to explore some excellentand completely freealternatives.
Google Docs
[Photo: Google]
You probably already have a Google account, which means you already have access to Google Docs. That’s likely the most frictionless switch from Word.
And just because Google Docs is free and easy doesnt mean its a slouch. Its cloud-based, has excellent collaboration features, plus real-time editing, voice typing, auto-saving, and seamless integration with other Google services.
If youre looking for collaboration, sharing documents with multiple people, and quick document creation that wont feel vastly different from Word, this is it.
LibreOffice Writer
[Photo: LibreOffice]
If you prefer a desktop application, need advanced formatting options, and want a powerful, feature-filled Word replacement, check out LibreOffice Writer. Its part of the LibreOffice suite, an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, so if youre also looking to replace the desktop versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and the like, youre covered.
Though LibreOffice Writer can feel a bit outdated compared to some modern options and theres an initial learning curve for those used to Word’s interface, this is a tried-and-true alternative for grizzled word-processing pros.
WPS Office Writer
[Photo: WPS]
If youre looking for a Word-like experience without the price tag and don’t mind occasional ads, give WPS Office Writer a look.
Its got a similar interface to Microsoft Word, good compatibility with Microsoft Word formats, and nice extras such as free templates, cloud saves, and mobile apps.
And though it contains ads in the free version, theres an affordable $36 per year premium subscription that removes ads and throws in some extra features you may or may not use.
Give the free version a fair shake first, though: The ads arent super intrusive and the feature list is plenty full for what you get.
Dr. Becky Kennedy, a New York City-based clinical psychologist who coaches parents through difficult moments with their kids, has created a booming business centered on the notion that kids are, essentially, good people. The idea sounds simple, but to Kennedy, it’s profoundthe key to unlocking healthy parent-child relationships. And that insight, which Kennedy has developed into the Good Inside method, has turned “Dr. Becky” from prominent psychologist into a celebrity-status parenting guru.
[Image: Dr. Becky]
Early in her career, Kennedy embraced what she calls a behavior-first, reward-and-punishment” approach to parenting. But she came to understand that the method, which emphasizes discipline and consequences, doesn’t help children develop the skills they need to handle complicated emotional situations. So, Kennedy came up with an entirely new framework.
The basic idea of Good Inside is that children act out when they feel misunderstood or their needs aren’t being metthat their bad behavior doesn’t reflect their inherent character. And parents who approach them through this perspective are better able to set boundaries and develop healthy relationships with their children.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Kennedy joined Instagram to dispense advice to parents struggling with their suddenly trapped-at-home children. Dr. Becky soon became a social media sensation: She currently has more than 3 million Instagram followers and a growing presence on TikTok. In the meantime, she’s spun her Good Inside brand into a bestselling book, a podcast, and a subscription-based app, which launched last year and uses generative AI trained on Kennedy’s writing and videos to give parents personalized, specific advice to deal with situations in real time. The Good Inside app, which costs $276 a year, now counts more than 50,000 members.
Fast Company spoke to Kennedy about her approach to empowering parents, using generative AI and social media to spread her message, and growing the Good Inside brand.
What made you join Instagram in 2020?
I started to see that we create issues in childhood and then we try to solve them in adulthood. When I noticed this, I couldn’t unthink it. I’m always focused on efficiency. I think what led me to Instagram was the thought that more people need to know this. More people need access to the type of education that you get in every other job.
Parenting is the hardest job in the world, and we are sold this bullshit narrative that we should have a maternal instinct and that it should come naturally. The only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented. Technology is now being used to solve a lot of the world’s struggles and make certain things easier. Where’s the education and the technology for parents?
I want parents to say, I feel like I have the best parenting coach in the world in my pocket. I shouldn’t spiral after I yell at my kid. It shouldn’t be a mystery what to say when my kid comes home after getting in trouble at school.
[Image: Dr. Becky]
Is that why you developed the Good Inside app?
We grew completely organically on Instagram. Parents have basically told us along the way what they want, and we’re just serving it up for them. They want education. They want access to experts and access to each other so they know theyre not alone.
With that kind of insight we’re like, okay, we are going to create this ongoing experience. The app has a subscription model because if you’re a parent with kids, they are often living in your home for 18 years. We just want to be with people on their journey. We have more than 50,000 members in over 108 countries, even though we’re still just English-speaking.
We heard from parents during [the pandemic] that they wanted longer content. But now they are on the go and need advice for very specific situations, so it needs to be personalized. So when someone only has five minutes, they can feel productive.
This is really a digital product, just like Duolingo. We want parents to have a way to learn the language of parenting. Parents can type in a specific situation, and get practical advice on what they can do tailored to them using generative AI. They can also delve deeper and learn more if they want to.
What is the overarching theory behind Good Inside, and how did you come to it?
This all came together in my private practice. I’d work with adults, and I felt like there was one thing that was true about everyone, regardless of what they came to talk about. It’s that the patterns and the circuitry that were put in our bodies to protect us and help us adapt early on in life start to work against us in adulthood. A lot of our early childhood adaptations ironically become symptoms in adulthood. [People wonder], Why don’t I trust people? I’m so hypervigilant. I don’t think I was born that way. So what did I learn early on that made me untrusting?
I used to tell adults that the circuits that were put in place to protect us are hard to unwind because our body thinks it’s helping us. So I’d work with adults in helping them understand why they do things they do. That’s the first step, because we can’t intervene before we understand.
How does this theory apply to parenting?
I’d see parents of a four-year-old, they’d be like, My kid is hitting, and I don’t know what to do. I’d say to them what I was taught, which was to tell their kid, “We’re going to do a timeout.” Then take away their dessert and give them a sticker every time they don’t hit their friend.
But then I pictured doing this with the adults I’d see in my practice: Them saying, I yelled at someone at work, and me being like, Give me your phone, and by the way, you didn’t hit someone yesterday, so here’s a sticker. In that scenario, they’d reply, Why would taking away my phone help me stay calm? I think you just made me feel worse. Nobody would come back to my office.
No good CEOs make employees better by punishing them. But weÙve been doing this to kids for generations. We think, I’m punishing my kid and I tell myself that’s being in charge. But punishing is a sign of desperation, not authority. Good Inside is an approach for someone who can say, “I need to own my parental authority.
What do you advise parents to do in this scenario instead?
First, I have to set a true boundary. I would go to my kid and say, I’m not going to let you hit. When I did that, I’d actually hold their wrist or get in between them and the other kid. This is the opposite of what a lot of us do as parents. Many parents might say, Okay, stop hitting, or we do something weird and say, I’m going to count to three. It doesn’t make any sense. I would never say, I’m going to count to three and I hope you don’t run into oncoming traffic. I would just not let my kid run into oncoming traffic. That is what I call setting a boundary and embodying your authority.
After I set a boundary, I’d say something to stay connected to my kid and see the good inside them. Something like, “Hey, you’re allowed to be mad. Your sister’s playing with your favorite truck. But let’s figure out another way you can communicate that.
[Image: Dr. Becky]
What does this method teach kids?
Big picture: Nobody learns skills for better behavior by going to their room. I don’t know a four-year-old who’s like, Oh, let me search on the internet what to do the next time I’m mad so I don’t hit. A four-year-old is feeling ashamed. They feel like a bad kid. Ironically, their feelings are going to be harder to manage and they’re more likely to hit tomorrow. Good Inside separates who you are from what you donot to let you off the hook, but to provide a foundation to build skills and to improve behavior.
What if parents say, I have a four-year-old, theyre not going to understand that?
They will understand. They’ll understand that you set a boundary to stop them from acting out. They finally feel like they have an adult in the room keeping them safe. And they’ll understand that you’re looking at them. They’re a good person having a hard time, not a bad kid doing bad things. That difference is massive.
People often use the word “boundary” to express something that others should react to. But in your definition, it sounds like a boundary is something that requires nothing of the other person.
Often we say we’re setting a boundary when in fact we’re just making a request. Parents say, I set a boundary, and my kid’s not respecting it. Whenever I hear that, I think someone has an incorrect definition of a boundary.
My definition of a boundary, whether you’re a parent or not, is something you tell someone you will do. It requires the other person to do nothing. A boundary might look like you saying to your kid, Hey, I’m going to walk over to you, and if things aren’t calm by the time I get there, I’m picking you up and I’m carrying you to your room. Because my No. 1 job is to keep you safe, and hitting isn’t safe and you’re clearly not capable of making good decisions right now.
When a parent says, I’m going to literally hold you to stop hitting your friend, other parents on the playground might watch that and think, what the hell are they doing? What’s the best way to respond in that scenario?
I think you’re asking a bigger question: How much of my time do I spend in other people’s brains thinking about what they think about me? And how much of my time do I spend in my own brain gazing in and thinking about what I want and need? What’s really sadand this is what happens to a lot of women because were trained to gaze out before we gaze inis we don’t even really know what we want to do anymore.
One of the biggest things we do at Good Inside is empower parents to be the sturdiest, most healed version of themselves, which is the most important thing they can do to help their kids.
[Image: Dr. Becky]
So how do parents use the app? For instance, what if I had a kid, and they spilled a glass or water and screamed about it for an hour. How would the app help me?
Let’s do it right now. I’m typing the scenario into the app. Want me to read to you what it said? That sounds really intense. Kids often have big reactions to small accidents because they feel overwhelmed, and don’t know how to manage that. Your kid probably felt a mix of surprise, frustration, and maybe even fear of the mess, which led to that hour-long scream fest. In moments like this, start by just acknowledging what’s happening, acknowledge the surprise, not just the feeling, wow, that was a surprise. Then they’ll probably start to calm down and you can guide them through cleaning up together. This not only helps them learn to manage the situation, it also reinforces that mistakes happen and it’s okay to feel upset. Remember, you’re really helping your kid learn how to navigate big feelings. Then we have the next step for you if you want it. We have a primer to kids who are overly emotional. It’s a little bit longer, but it’ll take you one level deeper if that’s what you’re looking for.
How did you develop AI tools that can deliver these kinds of responses?
It took a year. I worked with an amazing clinical team of people who are trained in the Good Inside approach and our amazing machine-learning engineers. In terms of the content itself, I have a produced a lot, so it’s trained on that.
The app costs almost $25 a month. How did you think about that pricing strategy?
We think about things as expensive or cheap relative to what we’re comparing it to. If people compare our app to free reels on Instagram, they’d think it’s expensive. We have a lot of members who say, This is transforming my life at $25 a month. I pay way more than that in copays for my in-network therapist. My copays add up to over a hundred dollars a month.” So, this actually feels ncredibly reasonable. Nobody values their own mental health or their kids’ mental health as low on their list, and yet sometimes I think when we look at where we invest money, there’s a lot of other things we place above that. When you compare the price point to anything else that involves mental wellness, I think the value you get far exceeds the value you’re investing.
Is it ever too late for someone to change their parenting style?
Everything in our app, in our membership, in our company is based on the belief that it is not too late. We underestimate how much our bodies accept repair. We are all looking for the compassion and understanding that we never got.
I think when parents say, Is it too late? They’re kind of saying, “Have I lost the ability to stay calm, to feel good about myself, to feel confident that I can handle hard challenges with uncertainty?” I want to give that person a hug. I know it sounds cheesy, but I want them to feel the strength of my conviction in saying, “No.”
Will the journey be easy? Will everything change tomorrow? No way. But as long as it takes for our circuitry to build, it doesn’t take that same amount of time for it to unwind. We need a guide, we need some powerful ideas. We definitely need some practical, actionable strategies and many experiments. I think that’s what I’m most proud of. At Good Inside, we change a parent even more than their parenting.
Disney might tout its rides and character IP when it looks to lure people to its theme parks around the world, but once visitors get there, the draw is an escape from reality. Fans call it the Disney Bubble: The day-to-day world melts away and you’re immersed in an environment that is carefully crafted (and controlled) by Disney.
The Disney Bubble is designed to let vacationers to take one step away from the real world for the length of their stay. Distractions are minimized. You dont even need to pull out your wallet. Paying for things like a souvenir or a snack can be done with just the tap of your phone or Magic Band.
The Bubble is why many guests prefer to stay within the Disney ecosystem for the entirety of their trip, shopping, eating and sleeping at Disney-operated stores rather than less-expensive options just a few miles away. Disney’s customer service is an essential part of creating that Bubble, say executives. Interactions with staff, which Disney calls cast members can make visitors feel appreciated, whether its the Disney bus driver or a costumed character in the park.
Our cast are the heart of the magic at Walt Disney World, says Jason Kirk, senior vice president of operations, who oversees all four Disney theme parks in Orlando. Of course, guests love the fireworks. Of course, they love Space Mountain. But those moments with the cast are the things that create lifetime memories.
The Bubble starts with ensuring guests have a seamless experience throughout their stay, says Allison Armor, vice president of resorts operations at Walt Disney World. In other words, the check-in process at the hotel cant be separate from the park experience. The same level of service and helpfulness needs to be pervasive. The cleaning staff at hotels provide hallway hospitality, which covers everything from a smile and a greeting to guests to helping them solve any problem or fulfilling a request. And the parks transportation workers, from bus drivers to boat captains, interact with guests, offering park tips and collectible trading cards. (Bus drivers, in fact, receive the highest ratings of any cast members, Kirk says.)
[Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images]
[Guests] walk away with a feeling of immersion from beginning to end, says Armor. It has to be cohesive and an elevated interaction. Every cast member at every moment has to own that vacation experience for the guest.
Creating pixie dust moments
One of the most important ways Disney creates its Bubble is by giving every employee the decision-making power to enhance a guests stay, even if its just in a small way. This can range from the pixie dust moments (where a food service worker announces that a Dole Whip or churro is on Mickey and free to guests or a ride operator asks if you had fun and, if so, offers to let you ride again without a wait in line) to attending to any challenges guests encounter. If the cast member cant solve the problem, theyre trained to elevate it to someone who can. Customer service is one of the most-frequently cited perks of the parks.
Part of creating the Bubble is ensuring that guest experiences while theyre at the parks are as smooth as possible. To ensure this, Disney leaders study guest feedback to streamline and upgrade systems that customers interact with.
For example, after the parks reopened from the pandemic closure, Chelsea Filley, vice president of customer experience and commercial strategy, and her division launched a customer experience team, to understand and correct things that were making the Disney planning process complex for potential visitors.
That led to a variety of changes, from how dining availability was displayed to the renaming of the Genie+ reservation system, which had been criticized as overly complex.
Subsequent work by the companys team of analytical engineers resulted in further refinement of that skip-the-line reservation system. Lightning Lane selection, for example, was recently changed from the day of a persons park visit to prior to their arrival, letting them plan their trips in advance.
That was based on [guest] feedback and it has played out so well, says Kirk. It has taken the stress out of the day for our guests, but also our guest are getting more out of Lighting Lane. Theyre able to experience more attractions.
The Disney Bubble has become a big thing to maintainand will get even bigger with upcoming park expansions. Walt Disney World, in Orlando, spans nearly 30,000 acres, houses 25 hotels, offers more than 115 attractions, over 40 forms of entertainment (including parades, fireworks and live performances) and more than 50 character experiences.
By creating the Bubble, execs say they hope to make that choice not only less intimidating, but more welcoming.
Our breadth is our superpower, says Filley. The Bubble is what makes the magic, but you want that magic to feel like I am making the most of my time here.
Continuing its adherence to the tech industrys motto of move fast and break things, the current administration has recently put the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) on the chopping block. This 46-year-old institution (yes, it really is younger than the original Star Wars) oversees federal education policy, ensures equal access to education, and administers the federal student loan program.
As a recovering high school English teacher, I would argue that all of the DoEs responsibilities are vital to our nation and shouldnt be part of the Taxes Chainsaw Massacre. And Im glad our executive branch cannot dismantle the Department of Education without Congressional approval. But that doesnt change the fact that the Secretary of Education has slashed the DoE workforce, and the president has floated the idea of moving student loan responsibilities to a different department, like the Small Business Administration (SBA).
So, where does the proposed dismantling of the Department of Education leave federal student loan borrowers? Borrowers are subject to the legal loan contracts they signed with the DoE. This means the potential chaos could cause some localized chaos in the vicinity of your bank account.
To help borrowers understand what to expect and how to protect themselves while the dust settles around the DoE, I spoke to student loan experts Kat Tretina and Mark Kantrowitz. Heres what you need to know.
The SBA probably wont take over your student loans
Although the president has been treating all government agencies as if they can be changed on a whim, it isn’t that simple. If you remember your more obscure Schoolhouse Rock songs, youll recall that we have a three-ring government and no one part can be more powerful than any other is.
In this situation, “changing the location of the current federal student loan program, creating a new program, or even resurrecting an old guaranteed loan program, would require an act of Congress, Kantrowitz says.
Thats because the Higher Education Act of 1965 mandates that all federal student aid programs are located and managed by Federal Student Aid (FSA), Kantrowitz says. It’s right there in the statute. They can’t really interpret the law as the secretary of Education can delegate the authority to the Small Business Administration.
If the current administration decides to try it anyway, they would have to flout the law and face lawsuits to dismantle the DoE and move your student loans to another agency. This may be cold comfort, considering how little lawsuits seem to phase the president. But Kantrowitz offers some logistical comfort, as well: “Keep in mind that the SBA is cutting something like 43% of its staff, he says. So, how are they gonna do all this new federal loan stuff with fewer staff? Let alone what they currently do? It’s a recipe for chaos.
You may struggle to get personalized answers about your loans
Even though your loans are likely to stay right where they are, you may still experience some turbulence during repayment. Specifically, the DoE layoffs means the department has lost years of institutional knowledge as well as the necessary labor force to maintain the FSA website and provide call center support.
These mass firings may affect borrowers sooner rather than later. Tretina, who has been reporting on student loans for nine years, stated on March 12, 2025, that all of my contacts with the Department of Education were laid off, and getting a hold of anyone for information about the latest changes is near impossible.
Kantrowitz does offer a recommendation for how current borrowers can get the answers they need in the wake of this DoE reduction in force: Make friends with your student loan servicer.
Federal student loans are serviced by contractor organizations that manage loan repayment. While the DoE owns your federal student loan, a separate loan servicer is the organization you deal with directly when making payments, requesting forbearance or deferment, or changing your repayment plan. Loan servicers have to keep up-to-date with DoE changes and can typically answer questions about your specific loan situation.
But there are other calls you can make if youre confused about your loans and cant reach the DoE. Your college financial aid administrator is a good source of information, Kantrowitz says. Even if youve already graduated and you are repaying your loans, they can still provide you with useful information. This is also true for any borrowers who are repaying loans but didnt finish their degree.
Get organized to keep the chaos at bay
Any changes to federal student loans will only affect new borrowers. Current borrowers can count on their loan agreements remaining the same as they were when they signed them. But very few of us can recite the specifics of the loan agreements they signed in collegewhich is why you should protect yourself by hunting down those documents and keeping them handy.
To be clear, it is exceedingly unlikely that the U.S. government will start playing a shell game with your current federal student loan. Locating, downloading, and printing out your loan agreement is a way to protect yourself from misinformation or misunderstandings about your loan.
Heres how: If you have your documents available, they can provide you with a starting point for understanding how a proposed change might affect you. If you dont have your loan agreement and an understanding of your borrower rights and responsibilities, its a lot easier to panic if you hear a rumor that the WWE is now in charge of the DoE.
That said, Tretina also recommends keeping hard copies of your payments, just in case. If you have student loans, download all of your statements, particularly records of past payments, she says. Having these records will ensure you get credit for all of your payments, even if the overworked remaining DoE employees make an oopsie or experience an IT glitch.
Be the order you want to see in the world
Its easy to feel overwhelmed by the chaotic news cycle, especially when it starts affecting things that were already overwhelming, lke student loans. In addition to breathing into a paper bag, you can help calm your concerns by remembering that moving your student loans to another agency would require an Act of Congress.
While the recent staff cuts at the DoE may make it difficult to get personalized answers about your loans, you can always reach out to your loan servicer or your alma maters financial aid office for assistance. And downloading and printing copies of your loan agreement and statements will help protect you from both misinformation and potential mistakes.
When Todd Willing was 15, he entered a high school work experience program at Fords Australian Design Studio. His father owned a garage, and hed always been around cars. I had a loose understanding of what went into them because of that exposure, and I always had a creative bent I guess, says Willing. I would be drawing cars most of the time, to the frustration of my teachers. The experience is still so vivid in Willings mind: the plane ride to Melbourne, the energy and feel of a space devoted to creativity, the culture and environment of a creative team. That was it for me, he says. I wasnt going to be doing anything else.Now, 22 years later and still at Ford (though this time in Michigan), Willing is Head of Design, leading the design practice for Ford and Lincoln brand vehicles worldwide. Having been the chief exterior designer on the 2017 Ford GT and leading teams responsible for the F-150, Ranger, Bronco, Explorer, Expedition, and more, Willing has been a key part of shaping Ford vehicles around the world. And while his role is fairly big-picture, Willing says he feels a deep responsibility that ties back to his industrial design education: to create something new or improve on something, making peoples lives and experiences better. Willing says so much of that work is creative and connected with various disciplines across the design studio.
Turns out, to prepare for that kind of work, Willing still somehow manages to hang around cars. When he isnt working, he races vintage race cars. When youre in a race car, your safety depends on 101% concentration. It pushes everything else aside. Right after that, I feel freer to be creative.
As designers we make thousands of decisions on behalf of our customers . . . we need to be armed with deep insights. In our case, it’s motor vehicles and services. It should be done to make lives better in some waywith thoughtful design, desirability, and being straightforward. Thats really important. We have research groups that help us do that. We have ethnographic research, where we spend time with customers. You need to take that and apply a lot of care and attention to get it right. To solve for unmet needs. In many cases, its doing this before our customers or users even realize they are working around something, or that problem exists to solve. Thats where the real magic happens for me.
Im part of a bigger industrial systemmarket trends, legislation; these are constraints to pure creativity. Sometimes that might seem limiting, but also its an opportunity to innovate with purpose. You have something very specific to solve and there are obstacles in the way that forces innovation in a lot of cases.
Sometimes when I need to clear my mind, I race vintage cars. Thats super helpful when I want to be creative. I did go karting as a kid, and later on, once I could afford to, I got back into racing cars. I have a few now and it’s definitely therapy for me.
The 2017 Ford GT [Photo: Ford]
I like things to be optimized. When things have a clear purpose, you can go deep into that purpose and make sure that the product delivers on that. Its not enough to be visually appealing. If you look at our industry, theres been a heavy bias toward styling and that chemical reaction people have in their brain when they see something thats appealing. Thats critical, but doing it with more meaning and purpose and delivering on the function is critical to me. My personal philosophy, I like to edit things to the point where theres nothing extraneous without function. It allows you to put more content or money into the things that mean something.
I surround myself with creative talent as much as I can. This role requires me to be available for different aspects of the business. I make sure I build in the right amount of time to have conversations around creativity, and be with the creative team. I find it helpful to have some specific creative reviews where there is no hierarchy. The person with the most knowledge or the best idea holds the floor, and we park our stripes at the door. Being face-to-face with the team, and giving attention to the designers with the least experiencethey are the ones faced with the challenges of design the most, too. Its a catalyst for fresh and interesting design.
I believe good design plays a prominent and positive role in daily life. It should talk to you. Good design should telegraph purpose, capability, proper use, and of course be highly attractive to those whom it is intended to serve. I encourage our teams to avoid false adornment. Having a clear and differentiated mission at the start of a project is a big enabler for success. When we were creating the latest generation of Ford GT, the ambition to race and win at Le Mans was the mission. Using this as a guide for decisions, if a proposed design element had a negative impact on the performance, then it wasnt allowed on the car.
Automotive design is part of a complicated ecosystem. The investment required for new products is very high, and the product cycles are much longer than most industries. This means that creating products that are meaningful and have longevity are important. There are many factors that influence our approach: different market trends, global politics, legislation, etc. Although on the surface constraints can seem limiting, they often drive innovation. Affordability is becoming ever more critical in the face of new competition and economic factors. This comes back to my point about the criticality of making the right choices on behalf of prospective customers. Our CEO talks about there being no space at Ford for Vanilla Cars. This means that everything needs to have a clear purpose that is attractive and useful to our customers. Our products should be focused and be the best at what they do.
Ideas, until they are proven, can be fragile. But, its important to make sure we draw them out even if they are not obvious home runs. Making sure the ideas have time to breathe a little bit . . . usually that leads to a spark that has potential and it will invariably inspire the rest of the team to grow off of that initial idea. If the inspiration in the team is low, look at what you have and try to flesh it out. Then usually that inspires something in others.
I have a motto for my team: Design is not an attribute. There is always a trade to be hada way of spending moneywhat choices you make along the way. Its an intentional product creation that marries purpose, function, and desirabilitynot necessarily in that order, but it needs to consider all of those things. I am frustrated when I hear design being referred to as the darling department. If we turn up around that motto, that perception disappears.
The worst thing that the federal government has done to labor unions in my lifetime happened this week. Donald Trump signed an executive order saying that the government will no longer recognize and bargain with a huge portion of the unions that represent federal workers. Among the agencies where he says he is tossing out the union contracts are the VA, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, and others.
To justify this move, Trump said that all of these agencies are involved in national security. This is a fiction. His statement also said that Certain Federal unions have declared war on President Trumps agenda, which is closer to the true motivation. He doesnt like these unions, so he is just trying to erase them with the stroke of a pen. None of his Republican predecessors in the White House for the past half century ever considered doing something this outrageous. In comparison to this, Ronald Reagans firing of the striking air traffic controllers at PATCO was a calm and reasonable decision.
There are more than a million union members working in the federal government. I have not seen an official count, but this executive order targets most of them. It is also meant to establish the precedent that the president is capable of destroying entire unions using flimsy legalistic pretexts. Oh, the Environmental Protection Agency is determined to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, so you can throw out its fairly negotiated existing union contract, and that is okay? Sure. Treating any of this as a legitimate political position is a mistake. This is just running into the middle of organized labor swinging around a chainsaw.
You may recall that earlier this month, the Trump administration declared that it was unilaterally tossing out the union contract covering 50,000 TSA workers. When that happened, I said that it was the worst thing to happen to unions in America in my lifetime. And it was. This latest action is many times worse. It is multiplying the unilateral attack on workers at a single agency across the entire federal government. When a presidential administration does the two worst things in the past half century within three weeks of one another, that is enough data to understand what is happening. With two points, you can draw a line.
Now is not the time for organized labor to sit in conference rooms with their lawyers going Ermm, well, this is certainly a rather radical interpretation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978! My brothers and sisters, this is war. Republicans dont want unions to exist. And they are coming for us. Right now. Rouse yourselves.
Here is what is happening: First they are coming for the federal unionsthe lowest-hanging fruit, the most bureaucratic unions, the ones barred from striking. Then they will proceed to come for all public-sector unions. Then they will come for private-sector unions. Understand that the transparently bullshit nature of the justification for this moveUh, everything is national security, therefore Trump is king over youis a preview of what will be more transparently bullshit justifications for them to conduct further outrageous assaults on the very existence of organized labor. They dont give a fuck. They are proving, over and over again, that they dont give a fuck. This is not about law. This is about power.
The point of the labor movement is to give working people power. That is what unions do. The unions of America purport to be powerful. If we imagine that all of our power is dependent on the kindness of the presidentand that it therefore can be wiped away in one day because a particular president is willing to stretch the wording of the law as far as his imagination will let himthen we were just bluffing the whole time. In that case, we never really had power at all. We were lying to all the working people who believed that solidarity would produce a sort of power that was not a polite request, but an inherent fact. Do unions have power or not? If they do, the time to exercise that power is now.
We, the labor movement, cannot allow individual unions or individual sectors to be picked off by our fascist government as the rest of us stand by, thankful that we werent targeted this time. That is the road to death. It is also an abdication of solidarity, which is, in fact, the source of our power. Naturally, if we do not act in accordance with the source of our power, we are going to be weak. And, throughout these hectic first months of the Trump administration, the unions of America have looked extremely weak. It is time to fucking wake up and act as one, before its too late.
It is unreasonable to run around demanding a general strike every time a single union gets in a hard fight. It is not unreasonable to demand a general strike when the very existence of unions is under direct attack by a government that cares nothing about us, and does not respect our contracts, and is attempting to throw in the trash the union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of our fellow union members, as a step toward doing the same thing to millions more of our fellow union members.
This is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, against the labor movement. Will we say, We are filing a lawsuit against this illegal bombing, and we will keep you all updated as it progresses? Will we say, Pearl Harbor is way out in Hawaii. Im glad those bombs didnt fall where I live. These are the terms that the union world needs to be thinking in, right now. This is not an exaggeration. If we do not go to war, the husk of American unions that emerges at the end of the Trump administration will be, probably, about half as big as it was when the Trump administration started, and immeasurably weaker. That is not an acceptable outcome if you believe that increasing organized labors strength is the key to saving this country, which it is.
It is trite to use boxing stories as metaphors, and I really try to avoid doing it, but I am going to do it today, as a special occasion. When you start boxing, sooner or later you will experience a moment when you realize in a deep and palpable way that nobody is coming to save you in there. One day, you will be getting your ass kicked, and you will be getting hurt, and you will look around and see that there is nobody else in that ring but you and the person who is kicking your ass. There is no other authority to appeal to. There is no button to push to stop the massacre. Even though the fight may not be fair, even though the person beating you up may be bigger and stronger than you, the raw fact is that you will either fight back and defend yourself, or you are going down. There are no other choices. This realization has the clarifying effect of wiping away your illusions about the world and leaving you with one clear path forward.
That is the position that we, the labor movement, are in. It is all on us. Of course the successive illegal actions of this administration should all be chllenged in court, but it is foolish to expect the courts to save us from what is happening. The courts will be, at best, a momentary tap of the brakes. This administration does not care about the law. Nor do they care about the fundamental right of working people to choose to come together as a union for the purpose of collective bargaining. They want to destroy all of that. And they will, unless we, ourselves, stop them.
If you are a union member, contact the president of your union today and make it clear to them that inaction right now is unacceptable, and tell them also to contact the AFL-CIO with the same message. Tell them you are ready for a general strike for your brothers and sisters who work in the federal government, and for all of us. Tell them that this administration is an enemy to the existence of unions and that any union that believes that they can be an ally to this administration is undermining the solidarity of all working people.
There is a surreal nature to living through drastic thingswatching things unfold that we have only imagined as abstract possibilities. That surreality can be paralyzing. It can turn us into spectators of our own demise. Lets not do that. I dont want to write new the worst thing that has happened in my lifetime pieces every few weeks. The labor movement is supposed to have the power to shut things down. Time to act like it. Or, to prepare to die. Only two things are left on the menu. No substitutions allowed.
This piece first appeared on labor journalist Hamilton Nolans Substack, How Things Work.
Few apps are as inextricably linked to the iPhone as Apple’s Messages. Introduced with the original iPhone almost 18 years ago, the app (then called “Text”) has become the primary messenger for most iPhone users worldwide. It allows users to receive Apples proprietary iMessages, as well as RCS messages and old-school SMS messages.
In recent years, Apple has introduced several new features to the Messages app and its iMessage protocol. Most recently, in iOS 18, the company allowed users to stylize text by bolding or underlining words, incorporated animated effects that make words shake or appear to explode, and enabled users to react to a message with any emoji. But while the above additions are nice, theyre mainly eye candyand that only gets a messaging app so far.
When it comes to being truly useful, Apples Messages still lacks some basic functionalityand reliabilityother messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal have had for years. Apple is expected to preview the iPhones next operating system, iOS 19, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 9. Heres hoping the company adds the following improvements currently sorrowfully lacking in Messages today.
iMessage needs to work when traveling internationally
Apple needs to address how its iMessages work when a user is traveling internationally and using a temporary travel SIMas anyone who has tried to text a friend who is traveling overseas, or who has traveled internationally themselves, knows too well.
If an iPhone user removes their domestic SIM card and replaces it with a temporary travel SIM, they often will not receive messages sent to the iMessage account associated with that phone number. Instead, the messages will, more often than not, simply disappear into the ether, never to be received againeven after the domestic SIM card is reinstalled.
It may be natural to think that, of course, a person wont receive a text if they dont have the SIM card with the phone number the text was sent to installed in their phone. But thats not how iMessages work. When you send an iMessage, you’re not actually texting the users phone number. Instead, youre using their phone number as a routing identifier to deliver a message to the associated iMessage account. This is why your Mac and iPad can receive and send messages to and from your phone number-linked iMessage account.
In other words, it shouldnt matter that the users normal SIM card isnt in their iPhonethey should still be able to receive the iMessages. This is how it works with competing apps like WhatsApp and Signal, which also use phone numbers as routing identifiers. Indeed, whenever a friend travels internationally, and I dont get a response to an iMessage Ive sent, I follow up via Signal or WhatsApp. They immediately receive those messages despite not having their domestic SIM card installed.
I reached out to Apple about why iMessages dont work in a similar matter, and the company told me that it was a security measure. Apple says that the measure triggers when an iPhone is without its domestic SIM cards for a few weeks, until which time users can still receive iMessages sent to their usual phone number. However, in my experience, this two-week timeframe is not accurate, and as soon as a domestic SIM card is removed from the phone, iMessages sent to the number will not go through. Apple also says that users can keep getting iMessages with a travel SIM if they have their friends send the iMessage to their email address instead of their phone number. But this relies on everyone texting you knowing that you are traveling internationally and without your domestic SIM card.
While I understand the security reason behind this problem, it would be great if it were accurate that it only kicks in after two weeks. Even better: Apple should give users the option to disable this security measure for a period of time that the user can designate whenever they switch from their default SIM to a travel one.
Archiving would help reduce clutter
But reliability isnt the only issue that Messages faces. For some reason, Apple still hasnt added a feature that allows users to archive chat threads.
Archiving helps declutter your messaging app by letting you move chats with people you no longer or rarely interact withlike the plumber who fixed your sink last monthto a separate folder. This frees up screen space and allows you to keep your most important and active chats front and center.
Archiving is a great intermediary option between keeping a chat thread forever or deleting it entirely. It has been a standard feature in nearly every major messaging app for years. Why Apples Messages still doesnt support such a basic feature in 2025 is beyond me.
Bookmarking would offer quick access
Speaking of basic featuresApples Messages lacks another one: the ability to bookmark individual messages. Other messaging apps, like WhatsApp, have allowed users to do this for a long time (WhatsApp calls this starring messages).
Bookmarked messages are saved to a smart folder that the user can easily access inside the app in order to view their most important messages. This is a great way to quickly access an old message that you would otherwise have to scroll through lengthy threads to find again.
There are many reasons to bookmark a message, ranging from the sentimental to the practical. An example of the latter might be when you want to quickly access important information someone had previously texted youlike the PIN code to a friends smart door lock so you can enter their house to feed the cats while they’re away.
Labeling forwarded messages would eliminate confusion
Even when iMessage does offer basic features that most other messaging apps offer, they are sometimes poorly implemented. The most glaring example of this is message forwarding, which allows you to easily forward a text one person sent you to another person.
Other apps clearly indicate that a message is forwardedoften with an arrow or label in front of the forwarded message. But with Apples Messages, the forwarded message simply looks as though it was written by the person forwarding it.
Case in point: The other day, I received a message from a friend that had a very uncharacteristic tone and subject matter. It confused me quite a bit. While I was reading it a second time, I received a follow-up message stating that the first one was from another individual, and my friend was simply forwarding it to me. Without that additional text message from my friend clarifying that the first message was forwarded, I wouldnt have known, because Apples Messages doesnt give any visual indication distinguishing a regular message from a forwarded one.
Will Apple implement any of these changes in Messages in iOS 19? I hope so, but well just have to wait to see. Apple is expected to preview iOS 19 at WWDC25 in June.
The benefits of taking time off from work are well-documented. In previous coverage, Fast Company has detailed how vacations stave off burnout, promote engagement, and may even help you be healthier.
There are a number of ways to get more out of your vacation days, says time-off expert Jackie Swayze, founder of Maximizing My PTO, a website that helps people use a number of tips and tricks to plan unusual getaways. She says that one size does not fit all when it comes to paid time off. There’s so much more creativity to be had than the standard, you know, take one week off in the summer, she says.
Here are some ways others have made their time off distinctly their own.
Honor your personal priorities
Sundie Leigh Jones, a software development engineer, says she makes the most of her PTO by focusing on her priorities. One of the ways she does so is to use time off for her birthday and her daughters. Im big on spending my free time building up my relationships, and I like to do that by traveling to people I love or with people I love, she says.
Since her birthday typically falls around Labor Day and her daughters is during the summer, those are good times to take a day to celebrate, she says. And if they fall adjacent to a weekend, thats an opportunity to make the celebration into a long weekend.
Plan a speed getaway
Swayze recommends checking your local airport’s flight schedules. There are likely direct flights that make getting to a particular destination convenient. That recipe for a quick trip may require little to no time off.
For example, she recently flew to Ireland for St. Patricks Day. While some might balk at flying several hours to a destination for such a quick trip, she says that changing your thinking about doing short trips can open up new opportunities for adventure. There’s never enough time in a place ever. I’d much rather go somewhere for just a couple of days than not ever go at all, she says.
Combine your PTO with flexible work time
Swayze says remote work opportunities can open up other ways to extend your PTO options. While her husbands job typically requires him to be in the office five days per week, he does have some flexibility to work remotely.
When they found a great deal on a flight to Paris out of Detroit, they flew from Chicago to Detroit the night before. He worked out of the hotel the next day and then they boarded their flight to Europe. Once in Europe, working East Coast hours tends to mean getting the morning to explore and working from 3 to 11 p.m., she says. Play hard, then work hard.
(Of course, its important to check that your employer allows work from anywhere and to also ensure that working in other states or countries wont create new tax obligations.)
Work on your hobbies or side hustles
Jones owns a number of income properties in other states, so shell schedule her PTO to be able to go tend to those properties, taking off a day or two on a given week to create a long weekend. She even planted an orchard during one of her breaks. Because her day job tends to make her sedentary, she says she relishes the opportunity to do physical labor when she takes time off.
I took two weeks off, and we transformed a part of my property . . . [into] a small fruit orchard, she says. We worked 10 hours a day on the orchard. Then, on the off days, we explored the Pacific Northwest. While that may not sound restful, she says that she enjoys the trips and the chance to build her property portfolio. Plus, all that physical activity leaves her eager to get back to her desk job, she says.
Be strategic about when you take time off
Cornia Leslie is the public relations manager at email verification service ZeroBounce. While her company has an unlimited PTO policy, shes concerned about how much is too much. Still, she says she needs at least four to five days off to begin disconnecting from work, so she planned a long vacation last year, spending nearly a month in Europe. It was my first real vacation in seven years. I was able to fully relax and stop checking my email compulsively, she says. To prepare, she made plans for her tasks to be covered and wrote some content in advance.Leslie says that she actually felt more secure about taking vacation time when she had a set amount of PTO. I dont want to abuse this policy, so I try to plan ahead: Batch my time off, use it less often, but make it count, she says. Longer vacations are more restorative for me than scattering single days here and there.In addition to a longer-than-average vacation, it may also be possible to use your time off to plan a sabbatical to learn something new, travel, or work on a personal project.
Swayze encourages people to think about being strategic and use the PTO that they are due. I plan trips pretty far in advance, so I’m looking at my whole year of PTO all at once, she says. By thinking through the time off you have available to you, as well as holidays and seasonal fluctuations in your work, you can create times for rest, experiences, and adventures throughout the year in the ways that best suit you.
