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Verge Favorites: Ellis Hamburger

Verge Favorites: Ellis Hamburger

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The Verge editors pick their current favorites in music, movies, books and more.

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The Verge staffers aren't just people who love technology. They're people who love stuff. We spend as much time talking and thinking about our favorite books, music, and movies as we do debating the best smartphone to buy or what point-and-shoot has the tightest macro. We thought it would make sense to share our latest obsessions with Verge readers, and we hope you're encouraged to share your favorites with us. Thus a long, healthy debate will ensue where we all end up with new things to read, listen to, or try on.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

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I used to think the Dirty Projectors only produced inaccessible violent abrasive experimental hipster music. Boy was I wrong. I'm convinced that just about anyone can find something to enjoy in tracks like Dance For You, Impregnable Question, and the title track itself. There are plenty of more challenging tracks as well to quench the thirsts of more hardcore fans, too. This is my favorite album of the year thus far, hands down, and might include the most sublimely organic singing I've ever heard.

Slice for iPhone

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I order lots of stuff online. In fact, like many people, I am borderline immobilized by the desire to buy stuff online and have it be in my hands two days later thanks to Amazon Prime. It's not so easy to keep track of tracking numbers and receipt emails, and that's why I use Slice. The app plugs straight into Gmail and automatically sniffs out receipts in my inbox. The app then conveniently displays all open orders, with receipts, tracking numbers, and ETAs right there for you. Tap the map icon, and the app tracks any package for you. There's no need to copy and paste a tracking number into a shipping site again. The best part, though? Slice sends you a push notification when your package is "out for delivery."

1Password

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There are still very many people who have no idea what 1Password is or does. Until my aunt sent me a promo code for the app, I knew what 1Password was, but had no idea how to use it. Now, a few months later, the app is an invaluable timesaver that I can't live without. Here's the truth: the value of 1Password is in its browser extension. In Chrome, whenever I'm looking to input my credit card number, I click the 1Password extension, enter in my "one password," and then the extension intelligently auto fills my credit card number. This works with usernames and passwords on any site too, so truth be told, you only need to remember one password. The app syncs via Dropbox, and becomes even more of a miracle once you pair it with launcher app Alfred, like so.

If This Then That

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IFTTT is essentially an API manipulator website. Once you sign in to all of your social networks, Dropbox, and a few other apps, you can set up "triggers" that take advantage of these connections to do things for you. For example, using a simple ifttt "recipe," every time I'm tagged in a photo on Facebook, it downloads in high res to my Dropbox. Ifttt also archives every one of my tweets to a single text file in my Dropbox. Lastly, any time I check in somewhere on Foursquare, the check in gets converted to an event and imported into a "Foursquare checkins" calendar inside my Google Calendar. How about that for life-logging nirvana? Ifttt redefines "set it and forget it," and believe it or not, these "recipes" are dead simple to set up. If you'd like, you can even create your own from scratch.

Outlier OG pants

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I wrote about these "advanced pants" a few months ago, and while they're expensive as hell, they're still serving me incredibly well. In fact, when I wake up in the morning, it's hard to convince myself to wear anything besides my Outlier pants or shorts. I get strange looks from my girlfriend when it becomes obvious that I've worn the same pants for 10 days in a row. These pants are made from some insane material that repels odor and water, and is stretchy to boot for those moments when you have to outrun other bloggers for the best seat at a keynote. The material isn't perfect — dirt tends to cling to it, and I feel like some of the threads are coming undone, but as far as I'm concerned, these are just about the most perfect pants money can buy.

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