Easy to use items can be a lifesaver when you’re struggling through a rough patch. Whether it’s helping you navigate a closet that is too small, vanquishing a bad hair day or easing the symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD or dementia, these helpful gadgets help you get through the everyday tasks of living with less friction and more fun!

Organize your spice cabinet with this handy organizer found on Amazon. Keep mugs from spilling with this stacked storage found on Amazon. Save time on cutting herbs with this convenient stripper tool found on Amazon. Create a quart of homemade ice cream in about 25 minutes with this soft-sided ice cream maker found on Amazon.

If you have old crafting supplies like extra buttons, clothespins, cans or toilet paper rolls lying around the house that you never use, consider donating them to an elementary school art teacher or re-purpose them as planters for succulents! Crafting strengthens dexterity in hands and fingers, activates the creative part of the brain, and can ease symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD and dementia.

Real time updates allow applications to perform tasks as soon as new data is collected, and deliver results or feedback without any noticeable delay. It also allows apps to communicate with each other and deliver messages without users having to reload the app or page.

When developing an application that relies on real-time updates, the first step is to decide how to transfer data between server and client. The most simple option is polling, which works by contacting a server at regular intervals until it receives an answer. However, this method has several drawbacks including resource consumption and a high number of server-side operations.

Another way to transfer real-time data is to use streaming, which transmits data continuously as it is received. This method is more efficient than polling and uses fewer resources, but can still lead to performance issues depending on the data size and how the stream is configured.

To avoid these problems, the WebSocket protocol was introduced to the web to support real-time communications between servers and browsers. It enables web apps to maintain a connection with the server, unlike the short-lived request-response connections of AJAX and can be used for real-time communication between a browser and a web app, chat apps, music sharing web apps, or even for displaying live stock market reports or weather maps.

Achieving real-time updates in mobile apps is essential for improving user experience and enabling a wide variety of business needs. It’s how Dominos lets customers know when their pizza is in the oven or ready for pick up, and how a business tracking inventory can keep up with sales at a global scale.

Real-time updates are also critical for enhancing the security of apps, and helping to protect sensitive user information. For example, financial services companies use real-time analytics to detect fraud at the moment it happens and prevent unauthorized transactions. And, social media platforms use real-time updates to remove dangerous content like fake news and abusive posts from their 4.75 billion daily users.

Real-time updates are an important tool for developers to add to their arsenal to create faster, more responsive apps and websites that can help businesses meet customer demands and drive revenue. With human attention spans shorter than ever, it’s more important than ever to get the right message in front of your target audience at the right time.

Natural disasters take many lives, disrupt livelihoods and cause significant economic damage, often inhibiting development and contributing to conflict and forced migration. While the number of people dying from natural disasters has declined over time, these events are still responsible for a huge burden on human life. They are also the biggest source of financial losses for low-income countries, which require foreign aid to cover reconstruction costs.

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, people must find ways to access clean water and food, shelter, sanitation, health services and education. They also need to be able to protect themselves from future hazards and rebuild their communities. Humanitarian organisations are on the ground in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster providing essential emergency relief and supporting the recovery process. They are a crucial element in the disaster response cycle.

This map shows countries experiencing current disasters that are actively being monitored by ReliefWeb. These include floods, droughts, severe local storms, tropical cyclones, storm surges, tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires and other geo-environmental disasters. The data on these disasters are sourced from the Global Monitoring System for Disasters and Extreme Events (EM-DAT) and national meteorological services.

The size of a country’s marker indicates the number of Disaster Events recorded in that country from EM-DAT during the period displayed on the map. The colour of the marker represents the total number of deaths recorded in that country from these events, according to a statistical model.

On average, around 45,000 people die from natural disasters each year, representing 0.1% of global deaths. However, the death toll from natural disasters can vary considerably from year-to-year, with some years passing without any major events claiming large numbers of lives. Earthquakes continue to be the deadliest type of natural disasters, although other hazards – such as flooding and droughts – also claim many lives. Droughts, floods and hurricanes affect the poorest countries disproportionately, since they lack the infrastructure to adapt to these hazards.

In terms of the amount of damage caused by natural disasters, high-income countries experience a greater loss in GDP than low-income nations, and industrial damages are much more common. However, low-income countries are more likely to suffer from a higher proportion of lives lost in a disaster, since they don’t have the financial resources to cover the cost of rehabilitation and resilience.

The media’s preference for spectacular disasters can have a huge impact on where the world’s attention and resources go. A study by Eisensee and Stromberg showed that TV networks give more coverage to disasters where the number of fatalities is higher, but fewer when the casualty count is lower. This is especially the case for “gradual disasters” like droughts, which build up over a long period of time rather than occurring in an instant. This creates a “catch-22” situation, where the slow-building nature of these calamities makes it difficult for them to garner the media attention they need to receive aid and support from international donors.