It’s Electronics Day in Amazon’s 12 Days of Deals, so it’s only natural that an Anker Gold Box is one of the highlights.

The most obvious stocking stuffer idea here is a three-pack of durable Anker PowerLine Lightning cables for $20, in three different lengths. That’s the same price Apple charges for a single (worse) cable.

This tiny $11 battery pack is another crowd pleaser. It can slip into just about any pocket, and has enough juice for nearly a full phone charge. The larger PowerCore 10000 is also available for just $19.

For anyone with a modern iPhone, this Qi charging pad supports Apple’s maximum 7.5W charging speed, and unlike a lot of similar pads, it includes the requisite Quick Charge 3.0 wall adapter that it needs to operate.

Own a Switch or a modern, USB-C powered laptop? This car charger includes a 30W USB-C PD port, so you can stay powered up on long road trips. It also has a regular USB port for your phone.

And finally, it wouldn’t be an Anker sale without some charging hubs. Choose from one with Quick Charge 3.0 support, one with 10 (!!) ports, and even a surge protector, with a few USB ports included, naturally.

Just remember unlike most Anker deals, all of these prices are only available today.

Photo: Saturn

You’re driving, and something terrible happens with your car: Your brakes fail or your steering fails and you’re forced off the road, hopefully not dying in the process. You learn that others have had the same issue, and yet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn’t seem too concerned. But, as The New York Times reports, there is a little-known way to change that.

It’s called a defect petition, a tactic that’s been on the books for decades but is still rarely-used, with just four being filed so far this year. Anyone is eligible to file one and, at the very least, filing a defect petition forces NHTSA to investigate your complaint and tell you in a written statement whether there’ll be a recall and, if not, explain why.

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That’s more than the agency’s compelled to do if you just submit a normal complaint, of which tens of thousands are sent to NHTSA yearly. That’s in part because of the way NHTSA’s process is encoded in law. From their website:

The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation investigative process consists of four parts:

Screening — A preliminary review of consumer complaints and other information related to alleged defects to decide whether to open an investigation

Petition Analysis — An analysis of any petitions calling for defect investigations and/or reviews of safety-related recalls

Investigation — The investigation of alleged safety defects

Recall Management — Investigation of the effectiveness of safety recalls.

[...]

After conducting a technical analysis of such a petition, ODI informs the petitioner whether it has been granted or denied. If the petition is granted, a defect investigation is opened. If the petition is denied, the reasons for the denial are published in the Federal Register. Similarly, a person may submit a petition requesting NHTSA to hold a hearing on whether a manufacturer has reasonably met its obligation to notify and/or remedy a safety defect or noncompliance with a Federal motor vehicle safety standard. If the petition is granted, a hearing is held to assess the matter and decide what corrective action should be taken. If the petition is denied, the reasons for the denial are published in the Federal Register.

The upshot of all that is normal complaints—submitted via a prominent button on NHTSA’s website—can be screened, while defect petitions, by law, must be reviewed one-by-one and taken more seriously. Of course, this also means defect petitions are also more rigorous than normal complaints for the filer. In addition, like normal complaints, they must only pertain to potential safety issues and not, say, your busted air-conditioning.

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Filing a defect petition is far from a guarantee that a recall will happen—NHTSA is largely understaffed and overwhelmed—but the tactic has worked in the past.

From the NYT:

Forty-three defect petitions were sent to the agency over the last decade. Concerns included engine stalling, brake problems, airbag failures, headlight failures, unintended acceleration, an uncomfortable ride, faulty gas gauges and gas tanks prone to exploding in rear impacts.

Twelve of the 43 petitions resulted either in recalls or extended warranties covering about five million vehicles.

Instructions for filing such a petition are on NHTSA’s website, but the steps are a bit abstruse, so if you hope to file, plan to put in some time and effort. And because of NHTSA being NHTSA, also plan for a possibly lengthy wait.

The agency’s stated goal is to decide whether to grant a petition within 120 days. But it often fails to do that. The agency has one petition from 2018 that is late and one each from 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

But it isn’t hopeless, and the auto industry is such that it often takes PR campaigns and sustained media attention to prompt automakers to do anything, such is the expense and bad press that goes along with big recalls. Still, as the NYT reports, it really is possible for one person to do it themselves.

One of those was filed by Troy Lyman, a computer programmer from Winchester, Calif., who owns a 2007 Saturn Sky. A major concern among Sky owners, which arose around 2015, had been a sensing mechanism failure that could prevent the passenger-side airbag from deploying.

“G.M. wasn’t doing anything about it. N.H.T.S.A. wasn’t looking at the complaints and doing something about it,” Mr. Lyman, 48, said. “Basically it came down to, at some point in time, there has to be an individual who will do something about it, and I was tired of waiting for it to be somebody else.”

The agency granted his 2016 petition and began asking General Motors about the issue. Early in 2017, G.M. announced a recall of 91,000 2006-10 Pontiac Solstice and 2007-10 Saturn Sky models.

One of the oldest recalls in part prompted by a defect petition is also one of the more infamous problems in automotive history, the recall of 1971-1976 model year Ford Pintos for fire danger. Though later review argued the car was no more dangerous than its contemporaries, the Pinto developed a deadly reputation for going up in flames after low-speed rear collisions. It took years of press and defect petitions from the Center for Auto Safety, but in June 1978 Ford finally issued a recall. A month after that, Ford’s President Lee Iacocca, who had been instrumental in developing the Pinto, was fired.

Image: Pexels

If you’re deaf or hard of hearing, then placing or being part of a Skype call can be a complicated affair. This week, Microsoft rolled out a feature to make things a little easier: captions and subtitles.

The feature adds captions in real-time to audio and video calls, enabling those who might have trouble hearing the person their chatting with a better chance of understanding what’s going on in the conversation. It also offers real-time translations for 20 languages, for situations when the person you’re chatting with doesn’t speak your language.

Once on, you’ll see subtitles/captions scroll during the call with what’s being said. The subtitles are done by AI, so they’re not perfect, but they’re significantly better than nothing.

To turn them on you have two options:

If you just need subtitles for the call you’re on, you can toggle them on by pressing the + button during the call and then selecting “turn subtitles on” from the menu.

If you’d like to the captioning feature to be on by default, you can do that by clicking on your profile picture within the app and then selecting Settings. From there, select Calling followed by Subtitles and then toggle the button on for “Show Subtitles for all voice and video calls.”

Real-time subtitles are available in Skype version 8 on Android (6.0+), iPhone, iPad, Linux, Mac, Windows and Skype for Windows 10 (version 14).

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The feature is being gradually rolled out, so if you have Skype version 8 and don’t see it, give it a few days and try again.

Graphic: Allison Corr

It’s cold here in the Midwest, so in my estimation it’s always casserole o’clock. Casseroles are easy—plop a bunch of stuff into one dish, pop it in the oven, see ya in 45 minutes. I was two casseroles into fall this year when the inventor of the green bean casserole, Dorcas Bates Reilly, sadly passed at age 92. In her memory, I texted my mom and asked about other related recipes she had in her repertoire so I could continue paying tribute to the great art of the hot dish.

Her reply: “Ham balls, calico beans, etc…”

Me: “Ham balls is a casserole???”

No, ham balls is not a casserole, but it’s a traditional potluck dish from Iowa my mom remembered was included in my elementary school’s fundraiser cookbook. We then (together, via texting) flipped through the 19-year-old book’s pages for further research, where we discovered five recipes for ham balls alone. Mysteriously, graham crackers are essential to this dish.

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Having spent 10 formative years in the Hawkeye State, I ate a lot of casseroles, and a lot of ham, but never these. I thought it proper to try these ham balls out.

I selected the hammiest recipe; meaning, no other animal proteins were added in. (Some recipes also call for ground beef.) You’ll note the need for ground, cured ham. This doesn’t really exist as far as I could find, so I bought a small cured and sliced ham that was the closest to one pound, and whazzed it up in my food processor. That in itself made me feel very Iowan. The rest of the prep is easy: put in bowl, mix with other ingredients. Form balls.

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After baking, what came forth from my casserole dish were 37 tomato-soup-hued glossy spheres, steamy and slightly browned. I couldn’t bear to eat them without a side dish, so I recommend a green vegetable of any kind to balance the rich, salty flavors.

Final verdict: They’re tiny, really hammy meatballs with a sweet meatloaf glaze. The balls kept their shape really well, even when slicing them in half with my fork. They’re salty, so serve them alongside a good starch, a crisp-cooked veggie, and maybe some extra ham ball sauce. It’s a great use of leftover holiday hams or when you want to impress your friends with a true Iowan dish of balls.

Adapted from the Ham Balls recipe in “Johnston Schools Cooking Up a Storm,” 1989 edition, submitted by the Thoreson Family of somewhere near Johnston, Iowa.

Sauce

Mix ham, pork, crackers, eggs, onions, and milk and roll into balls 1 1/2-to-2 inches wide. Arrange in a single layer in a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish. Set aside.

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Combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl with a fork or whisk. Drizzle sauce evenly over ham balls before baking. Bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Image: Pexels

Whenever I fly, I always end up dialing the brightness down on my laptop to its lowest possible setting. In some cases, I’m straining my eyes to be able to see what’s on the screen, but it’s worth it for the precious few extra minutes of battery life I might get while I’m in the air and away from power.

This week CNET made another battery-saving suggestion that’s worth a try: powering off the keyboard’s backlight.

The idea here is to set your keyboard’s backlight so that it powers off after a period of inactivity, not so it’s off all the time (I know I definitely need it, especially in those dimly-lit situations). It’s the same concept as the Energy Saver feature you might use to turn off the display when you’ve walked away, but keyboard specific and the feature is located in a different menu.

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To get to it, go to System Preferences on your Mac and then Keyboard. From there check the box labeled “Turn keyboard backlight off after __ of inactivity” and then choose how long you’d like it to wait.

You can pick anything from 5 seconds to 5 minutes here. CNET recommends going with 30 seconds. That’s not a bad idea, but I can see some benefits in going shorter as well. You don’t want to do 5 seconds and turn your keyboard into a strobe of stopping and starting lights, but 10 seconds is a decent option, depending on how you typically use your computer.

Give a few settings a test drive and see what works for you.

You’re not going to save a tremendous amount of battery power with this, but when you’re away from an outlet, every second counts.