Lifehacker

You probably don't have to work on the first Monday of September, but why? The name Labor Day" suggests a holiday that's all about American workers, but most of us just see it as an excuse for a three-day weekend, and to celebrate the end of summer.Read more...

If you find yourself experiencing an unexpected heatwave and your air conditioner goes down, keeping cool can be difficult. While nothing beats the cool blast of air supplied by a traditional AC unit, there's a DIY approach that can help out. Making your own swamp cooler for emergency use is a simple project with just...Read more...

Sturdy pots and planters that look nice are some of the costlier elements of expanding your houseplant or garden collection. But you don't have to settle for cheap plastic pots or drop a fortune on fancy planters if you're willing to put a little bit of effort into making your own.

America is a land of opportunity, of contradictions, of...podcasts. In fact, there's at least one standout podcast for each of the 50 United States (and Washington, DC, too)-niche shows dedicated to everything from the Grand Canyon to the food at the Minnesota State Fair. Each one celebrates the voices and stories...Read more...

Getting through airport security with kids can feel like chaos, especially if each family member has their own carry-on bag packed to the brim with items they need to stay entertained on a long flight. Parents have to keep an eye on multiple bags, which may not pass through the scanners in any sort of logical order...Read more...

Most of us don't have $10,000 burning a hole in our pockets. Naturally, if you have this sum laying around, your first response should be to pay off any outstanding debt. It's the most risk-free, straightforward use of your funds. It's also a good idea to pad out your emergency rainy day" fund.Read more...

It's the end of an era: Microsoft is officially planning to shut down the Xbox 360 Store and the Xbox 360 Marketplace. While certainly sad news, it might not be necessarily surprising: The Xbox Games Store launched with the console back in 2005, the same year YouTube started. It was a different world. Now, with the...Read more...

Air frying bite-sized chunks of steak might be one of the most casual ways to pop straight protein (thanks, TikTok). It's fast, simple, and you can toss or dip the bites in any number of sauces. However, like most good ideas born on social media, there's room for improvement. Yes, you should make some popcorn meat,...Read more...

After Reddit purged its free API for third-party apps, the landscape of Reddit apps became quite bleak. You now have two options: You either use Reddit's own app, which is not great and is chock-full of recommended posts and videos you don't want to see; or you use the Reddit website, and jump through popups forcing...Read more...

This refurbished MacBook Air is on sale for $247.99. It's from 2015, so obviously it's on the older end, but it's certified refurbished to look and work like new. It comes with a charger and cable, black snap-on case, an Intel Core i5 processor, and 128GB SSD. Its battery can last up to nine hours on a charge.Read more...

Speech-to-text is among the most useful accessibility technologies to ever have been invented. It lets you use AI to read things out loud, which is great for people who suffer from vision loss, those who want to take a break from screen time, and those who want to listen to things while their hands are occupied (like...Read more...

Earlier this week, Snapchat's AI chatbot, My AI, seems to have gone rogue. With no explanation, it posted a story to all Snapchat users consisting of a one-second video of what looked like a wall and ceiling. This is not what My AI is supposed to do, and there is no explanation for why it did it.

You've almost certainly heard of love languages" and you probably also know there are five of them: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, and receiving gifts. Or at least there were. Truity, a company that offers a variety of personality tests, recently surveyed over 500,000 people and...Read more...

Woot! is having a big Warehouse Cleanout" sale where you can find many products highly discounted, with some more than 50% off. The sale goes on until Aug. 22, and Amazon Prime members can get free next day delivery for certain products.

You want to look your best in professional headshots for your company website or LinkedIn profile. (A bathroom selfie is not recommended.) But serious photographic portraits can cost hundreds of dollars, not to mention the time and effort. But maybe you can skip all that hassle with artificial intelligence.

Gmail has matured a lot over the years, so much so that you no longer need a third-party add-on for power-user features, such as scheduling emails. However, there is always room for more bells and whistles, particularly if your inbox serves as too much of a distraction, long email threads annoy you to no end, or you...Read more...

You can get two licenses of Microsoft Office forMac or Windows for $79.99 (reg. $439.98). The purchase comes with immediate download links and software license keys to install the complete app suite on up to two computers. Mac and Windows users get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and OneNote, while those...Read more...

In the wake of abust on an illegal medical lab in California involving a dozen government agencies, the Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use at-home pregnancy tests made by Universal Meditech, Inc. (UMI), which were distributed under multiple names and sold on multiple online platforms

Gas prices have come down from the historic high of over $5 per gallon national average it hit last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, our current $3.71 per gallon is nothing to scoff at. Luckily, there are ways to use technology to help us find the best deals on gas. Apps like WazeRead more...

Between the time you pack a lunchbox in the morning, and the moment your kid opens it up in the cafeteria, several hours have passed. Perishable foods shouldn't be in the danger zone" for more than two hours, so it's worth paying attention to time and temperature as you're packing that meal.

Gas prices are currently stuck in neutral, but could be rising again soon. The average cost for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is $3.873 and has been hovering around this same number for nearly two weeks, a noteworthy length for price stability," according to AAA. However, new data from the Energy Information...Read more...

When you're jumping into a complex project, it can be hard to know where to begin-but not if you're using the action method," a productivity technique that requires you to view everything you do as a project. A project" could entail cleaning your house, presenting in a meeting, or answering all of your lingering...Read more...

It's often said that painting is the home project that gives you the most bang for the buck. A fresh coat of paint can make a room feel brighter, bigger (or more intimate) or give your exterior an entirely different character, and you don't need a ton of skills or special equipment to accomplish it.Read more...

I was a packing cube holdout for the longest time. Sure, people rave about them, and they are a classic travel hack. But what would they really do for me?" I wondered, as I tightly rolled my t-shirts and tossed them into my cavern of a suitcase. I mean, it's a whole extra layer of fabric, so it's not like they save...Read more...

The weather is warm; picnics, backyard grilling, and cook-outs are everywhere you turn. And you know what that means: Somebody is going to bring a bowl of terrible coleslaw, and you're going to have to pretend you like it.

Summertime is the three-month period in New York City when buying an entire melon is the same price (and sometimes cheaper) than buying a pint container of cut fruit. I don't have a car, so you'll see me walking home with two bags of innocent-looking groceries, and a very weighed-down looking backpack. I love melon....Read more...

Remember scrapbooks? Maybe some of us still make them, but these days, most keep our photos on our phones. That, of course, has plenty of its own advantages, but you do lose a bit of the personal aspects to photo curation. Your important photos of friends and family mix in with screenshots of coupons and webpages, as...Read more...

If you're a soon-to-be-father working for a company that offers you paid paternity leave, you should take it. According to one study, only five percent of employed fathers took more than two weeks off after their youngest child was born. Yet there are tremendous benefits for dads (and their children) who take...Read more...

Dollar Flight Club and Matt's Flights both offer the same basic service and have lifetime subscriptions, and they're both on sale at the moment.Read more...

It's seldom that I'm stunned by a food hack. I'm often wowed, sure-but this scallion pancake trick had me sit-down-shook. It's relievingly simple, uncannily identical in flavor to the real" thing, and completely takes out the trouble and doubt that comes with dough making. This one is for the time-crunched scallion...Read more...

The white tiles in the living area of my home are an abomination: I track in dirt from the garden constantly, my dog is forever bursting through the doggie door with muddy glee, and I seem to cook with the spirit of Ratatouille, absentmindedly splashing food all about. I find myself in constant pursuit of cleaning...Read more...

When you call someone and it goes to voicemail, it's disappointing, but you can always leave a message so they know what you were calling about. When someone doesn't pick up your FaceTime call, however, that's it: The call ends, leaving you to stare at your phone with no one to talk to.

If you're in a part of the world where the temperature is currently Hell + 23 degrees, I see you. It may be hard to believe that fall is just around the corner, but I promise that someday soon, the leaves will fall because of the change of seasons (not a lack of will to participate in global warming).

The cameras on current-generation smartphones are extremely high quality. The iPhone 14 Pro has a 48MP main camera sensor, four lenses, and software that's so sophisticated it can seem like magic. It's more than enough camera for a quick selfie-but is it all the camera you'll ever need? It depends. As good as phone...Read more...

Be able to do a pullup" is a common fitness goal, and if you work hard-with negative pullups, inverted rows, and more-someday you'll get there. Go ahead, take a minute to celebrate. But don't drop the workouts that you were doing pre-pullup.

When you think of high-paying jobs, traditional roles like doctors, lawyers, and executives come to mind. However, some of the highest-paying gigs out there are roles you've never even heard of. My own sister, for instance, is something called a fire protection engineer." If I've learned anything from her career...Read more...

Prioritizing your to-do list is key to getting everything done. You need to make sure you're allocating enough time to the difficult and important tasks but saving space for the little ones, too. Try the ABC method for categorizing your responsibilities for the day.Read more...

ChatGPT may be the first name that comes to mind when you think of AI, but Google deserves to be up there as well. The company is constantly iterating on its artificial intelligence products, as recently evidenced by upgrades to both its AI chatbot Bard and its AI music generator.Read more...

Airport security lines are notoriously long, the process is slow, and it's often difficult to figure out what you need to do in order to get through quickly. There are a few different programs that can help make the process easier, though: TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, NEXUS, and CLEAR. These programs have a lot of...Read more...

Cruises are better with more friends or family onboard-especially if they can travel with you for free. For a limited time, you can book a seven-day Princess cruise with a partner and bring a second and third guest for free.

Let's say you've accumulated travel rewards into an airline or hotel loyalty program account but the remaining balance doesn't cover a flight (or part of a credit toward a flight) and you don't have any way of earning more points or miles any time soon.

After a long day of traveling, you finally get home after some time away, and make a beeline for the bathroom, and your very own, familiar toilet. But instead of the gleaming white bowl you left behind, you find a toilet full of brown lines and a ring. This is (probably) because you live in the 85% of the United...Read more...

Deciding whether to squeal on a colleague is not something to take lightly. In the best situation, it could protect you, others, or the company from an employee's wrong-doing. You could come out looking like a hero if the circumstances are right. But, more often than not, it will likely lead to little change, possibly...Read more...

You rarely think about your roof until it starts to leak, but once that drip invades your happy home, its importance becomes obvious-as does the fact that replacing a roof is an expensive proposition. Depending on the size and type of roof, a replacement will run you anywhere from $4,000 to more than $30,000. With...Read more...

We've probably all made a gym faux pas at some point. As a beginner, I know I was guilty of using dumbbells right in front of the rack; it hadn't occurred to me that I was blocking others' access. But most of us can master the basics of gym etiquette pretty quickly. And then we look around the room and-on a very...Read more...

An easy way to figure out if you have a healthy work-life balance is by asking yourself the question, If there were a book I wanted to read, would I have time to do it?" OK, that's a little reductive-and too specific, since maybe what you really want to do is join a recreational softball league, binge a show, or take...Read more...

We might think we're supposed to know our career path by the time we graduate high school or college, but you'll likely spend much of your life exploring new hobbies, skills, and jobs. If you're looking to learn something new and want some guidance, International Open Academy courses are $59.99 right now (reg. $400)....Read more...

Michael Oher, the subject of the hit 2009 movie The Blind Side, has alleged that the crux of that story is based on a lie. While the film depicts a wealthy family adopting him in good faith, Oher claims that in reality the Tuohy family established a conservatorship that stripped away his legal rights.

Even if you never think much about it, you're likely keenly familiar with your iPhone or Android's built-in share sheet. This is the menu that appears when you want to share something with a contact or another app, and it typically offers a slew of options to choose from.

Like other entries in the carbs coated in mayo" category of side dishes, pasta salad is incredibly polarizing. When it's good, I can't stop eating it; when it's bad, it's inedible. I've found that the secret to really good pasta salad isn't homemade mayo or a good jar of pickles-it's really bad pasta. Specifically,...Read more...