Lifehacker

When you sleep, you're unconscious by definition, but that doesn't mean your bed should be anything less than luxurious. You deserve to cuddle up surrounded by the finest things-and a few cheap swaps and additions are all you need to be dreaming like royalty in a fancy oasis of your own creation.

As the current summer season winds down and memories of sun-soaked days and tranquil beach escapes linger, it might seem counterintuitive to start planning for next year's summer travel. However, if you already know you'll be taking a big trip in summer 2024, it's worth taking a proactive approach now. And it's not...Read more...

If you've ever heard the word kanban," you probably remember it, since it is inarguably fun to say. Kanban," it turns out, is more than a fun word-it's a system for scheduling tasks in a highly productive way. It's a visual method for determining what you need to do, what your team needs to do, and what your...Read more...

It's not your imagination: Finding a job is harder than ever. Not necessarily because of a lack of jobs, but because the interview process has become what scientists call awful. It begins with the requirement that you upload your resume and then replicate all that information in a wonky online form; and leads you...Read more...

Drones aren't just for super tech-savvy people anymore,or those with big wallets. Whether you want to capture aerial videos or just fly them around for fun, you can find pretty decent, cheap drones nowadays-like this best-selling drone that's on sale: you can get two for $149.99 (reg. $398).Read more...

At some point in your life, you'll find yourself faced with chopping up a giant melon. Strawberries and kiwis are good practice, but your paring knife skills will leave you ill-equipped for taking down a watermelon, honeydew, or pineapple.

As senior health editor Beth Skwarecki once said, you can't avoid forever chemicals" in your life (they're already in 45% of our water supplies). You can, however, lower your exposure by following Beth's advice, like filtering your air, checking ingredient labels, avoiding certain foods, and probably most...Read more...

I don't think most of the people coming up with viral cottage cheese hacks" actually like cottage cheese. If they did, they would just eat it. Cottage cheese is already pretty perfect on its own: salty and creamy, with a wonderful lactic tang. My personal favorite cottage cheese hack is to scoop it into my mouth,...Read more...

If you're a new fan of Star Trek because Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has you hooked, welcome to the club, nerdlinger! Season two of SNW ends this week, so if you have a Star Trek itch, scratch it with Star Trek: The Original Series. SNW creatively goes where no Trek has gone before, but the original series is the...Read more...

Not all yards (or budgets) are built for beautiful landscaping, but that doesn't mean you can't have a comfortable, aesthetically pleasing outdoor space. There are plenty of ways to upgrade your backyard without planting or growing anything.

If you're an outdoorsy kind of person, nothing beats camping, whether you're enjoying the light luxuries of an RV or truly roughing it in a tent. While communing with nature is a blast, there's a reason humans have spent millennia trying to tame it and coming up with advancements to make interactions with the elements...Read more...

I have not seen the Barbie movie yet, but I have (somewhat unintentionally) made a Barbie Egg. It's like a normal fried egg, except bright pink-almost magenta, really-with the slightly sweet, subtly sour, earthy flavor of pickled beets.Read more...

It's a sad fact that of the 40 (or more) hours we spend at work every week, many are taken up byidle time, downtime, meetings, and other distractions. That's why it's essential that when you do find time to actually work, you're in the zone and getting things done.

Waking up to your favorite music is better than waking to a blaring alarm-it's just more civilized. If you have a Google Home speaker, it's easy to make it play a song or artist that will inspire you to get you out of bed.

If you're a gaming purist, you know wired controllers are better. Or if you play competitive games, like fighters, you might have friends also plugging in to play with you. Well, when you do, you might want to think twice about using the port on the back of your PS5. It might melt your controller's USB connector.

A fireplace can be a charming bit of old-school design in your home, evoking cozy winter evenings and simpler times when we lacked things like central heating. It's not uncommon for newer homes to have fireplaces incorporated into their common areas-often a decorative electric or gas-powered model that serves as much...Read more...

Taco Bell is giving customers free tacos for the next five Tuesdays. To get yours, walk into just about any Taco Bell location on August 15, 22, 29, and September 5 and 12, and say, Give me a free Doritos Locos Taco." No purchase is necessary.

Apple Music is a serviceable Spotify alternative, but it has consistently lagged behind in one critical area for a music streaming service: recommendations. Spotify users have long praised their app's algorithmic ability to serve them up worthwhile music recommendations, and those who've tried both services seem to...Read more...

The saddest meal of the year is always the one immediately after returning from visiting family. Mine is usually more of a free-range fridge scrounge than an actual meal, and I always have a lot of questions: Is that leftover curry too old to eat, or am I just a coward? Who ate all my cheese? Why didn't I stuff my...Read more...

The major incentive to stay loyal to one specific airline is your ability to rack up points and miles. A few years back, you could be confident that a business-class flight to Europe would cost no more than about 60,000 points or miles each way. Unfortunately, frequent flyers no longer have that same guarantee-not...Read more...

It seems that, in an attempt to rebrand mayonnaise, various hip food establishments insist on calling all sorts of creamy condiments aioli," and I refuse to stand idly by, letting this go unchecked. Aioli is not, as some would have you believe, fancy mayo." Aioli is its own, very specific thing, and it is amazing.

Applying to jobs is tedious, but dealing with tedium is AI's speciality. If you're tired of constantly drafting cover letters and manually entering your personal information, let a dedicated AI do it. LazyApply can help you generate application materials, automatically enter your information, and generally automate...Read more...

Sure, you can bring smoke to a summer salad by throwing a couple peaches, pineapple slices or romaine hearts on the grill, but what about those of us without grill access? We spend the summers roaming the earth, searching for even a hint of smoke to add to our salads. Turns out, there's a simple way to add it, and...Read more...

For anyone burdened with debt, fighting lifestyle creep, or overwhelmed by the current state of inflation, it's all too easy to feel as if your finances are out of your control. Even if you aren't drowning in debt (thank goodness), the ever-loomingprospect of a recession means you are still stuck living with...Read more...

Tasting real-deal balsamic vinegar for the first time can be life-changing. Traditionally made balsamic-aka Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale"-is a far cry from the stuff you see at the grocery store. Where most of the stuff sold as balsamic" is thin and sharp, traditional balsamic is thick, viscous, rich, and complex,...Read more...

So you think you've got this whole digital-security thing covered. You don't reuse passwords; you don't click suspicious links; you might even use burner email addresses. You're invincible. Except, whoops, what's that? You still got hacked? Wait, you haven't been typing lately, have you? Rookie mistake.

If you're putting together an end-of-summer home maintenance checklist, you've probably taken your home's HVAC system into consideration. Changing filters and performing an inspection at least once a year is always a good idea to keep everything running smoothly. While cleaning the gratings on your vents can help...Read more...

If you took a Spanish or French class in high school but now can't remember the word for banana, you aren't alone. It might be that you didn't use the language enough for it to really stick, or that a traditional class didn't fit your learning style. Or maybe you never took a language in the first place, and you're...Read more...

While towels are used as part of our cleaning process, they are, in fact, extremely gross.Read more...

ChatGPT has transformed the role of AI in our everyday lives. People are now regularly relying on AI to spiff up their resume and write thank-you notes. With the popularity of ChatGPT, however, comes the almost inevitable influx of scammers, as covered by Mashable. These scammers are making their own free AI programs...Read more...

I live in a city, but not the city, so my inexplicably teeny tiny kitchen tends to amuse my friends. It barely qualifies as a room;" it's more a small space carved out of a hallway and it's constantly cluttered with my various kitchen projects. There is no countertop space because I have almost no countertop.

Wearing a helmet while riding a bike doesn't eliminate the possibility of head injury in an accident, but it helps. According to this study, helmets provide a 63 to 88% reduction in the risk of head and brain injuries across all age groups. Conclusion: You'd be foolish to bike without one.

Cheese is good in nearly any phase-whether solid, liquid, or what could best be described as a gel." I haven't encountered cheese in a gaseous state, but if I did, I'd probably like it. (Are Easy Cheese whippets a thing?) Once of my favorite forms of (solid) cheese is the cheese crisp, aka frico," which is made by...Read more...

Are you angling for a promotion? Were you just given new responsibilities at work? Are you a little nervous you're not doing great with your existing leadership tasks? No matter what industry you're in, we all have similar goals and concerns. We all want to advance, make money, and do well in our roles. Luckily,...Read more...

Eating at a restaurant in New Mexico usually starts with the choice between red or green chiles, a question for which there is no wrong answer. Red chiles bring the heat, green chiles bring the flavor, and opting for both gives the word Christmas" a whole new (and utterly delicious) meaning. When it comes to green...Read more...

Anyone who cooks knows what it's like to have a rack overflowing with spices. If you're anything like me, you've collected an extensive supply of spices, many of which you've used exactly once. Then one day, you look at your spice rack and notice a thick layer of dust on those jars, and wonder: Do spices go bad? The...Read more...

Like many folks, my wife and I enjoy watching real estate reality shows, from House Hunters or Property Brothers. Everyone knows these shows are soothing, dumb entertainment that follows a formula so rigid you can predict what any pair of house hunters will say with near-perfect accuracy. These shows also lie to you...Read more...

Composting has an ick factor. Between gardening and cooking, I produce a lot of waste that goes right into the green bin" for city composting and I'm always super happy to shuffle it to the curb and out of my house. I'd always wanted to compost more seriously, but lacked the room, was fearful of pests, and mostly,...Read more...

If your Monday feeds are filled with people threatening to never use Zoom again, you're not alone. There are posts everywhere claiming Zoom is using your video calls to train its AI models. It turns out they're kinda right, but it's not the full story.Read more...

There's nothing wrong with piling tons of sweet toppings like fruit and whipped cream on your French toast, but don't forget, there is beauty (and speed) in simplicity. Instead of going maximalist on your French toast, get real French with it and rein it in with a quick, yet sophisticated, bruleed sugar topping.

It's been a hell of a summer for people with student loans. In June the Supreme Court blocked Biden's student loan forgiveness program. Then in July, the Education Department announced it would automatically forgive student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers on income-driven repayment plans.

There's nothing better for cooling off during a punishingly hot summer than checking out the night sky, and this year, August is working overtime to entertain and entrance. Gaze upwards after dark this month and you'll be able to see the Perseids meteor shower, Saturn, a supermoon/blue moon, and more celestial...Read more...

Nearly three years after its release and following endless inventory issues, the PlayStation 5 is finally on sale, and you can pick one up right now for $450, 10% off the $500 list price.Read more...

Breakfast sandwiches are a deeply personal affair. The classic combination of meat, cheese, egg, and bread is infinitely variable, with everything from one's preferred egg doneness to regional processed meat delicacies contributing to each person's ideal version. Personal preferences aside, most people would probably...Read more...

Traditionally, Microsoft has offered one solution to fix a broken Xbox controller out of warranty: Buy a new one. Of course, third-party repair solutions have existed for a while, but until now, official parts were out of reach. The situation has now changed: Microsoft now sells repair kits for Xbox controllers, which...Read more...

AirPods are the most recognized name in wireless earbuds, but they're hardly your only option. Instead of dropping $150 on a pair of AirPods, you can go a lot cheaper without sacrificing decent audio and features. Consider the Flux 7 TWS Earbuds: These AirPod alternatives offer a lot of the same features as Apple's...Read more...

It's the most wonderful time of the year-tomato season. Tomato season is brief and fleeting, however, so it's best to go into it with a plan to maximize the potential of your seasonal haul.Read more...

Heat is the enemy of pie dough, which makes the summer pie an especially challenging task. Even if your home is climate controlled, the oven's resonating heat and the warmth from your hands can soften the fat in the dough to the point of no return-too melted to handle. But don't crumple the limp disk into a ball and...Read more...

We've long advocated for keeping a record of your accomplishments to whip out during meetings with bosses or human resources, whether to angle for a promotion or argue against a criticism. But you should keep that record for another reason, too: It's motivational to look back on what you've done, see how you managed...Read more...

Grammar ain't easy. There are a many rules to keep track of, and, after a long day of work, you might not even know what you're reading anymore: Is that opening sentence in your email right? Does this message to your boss actually make sense? Rather than googling obscure queries related to your questionable sentence,...Read more...