Lifehacker

Compliments (usually) feel good. They can reflect appreciation and value, help build and boost self-esteem, encourage positive behavior, and help create a positive environment. However, even if a compliment is well-intentioned, it can easily fall flat. On the extreme end, it also has the potential to cross lines in…Read more...

It’s been a hell of a layoffs season. With this uncertainty in the labor market—not to mention the bigger picture of a looming recession—it’s natural to feel a sense of helplessness. You can’t live in a constant state of paranoia, but it helps to be on the lookout for some signs that layoffs are coming to your office.…Read more...

It’s probably not just a feeling you have: Some people really do get way more spam calls, emails, and texts than others. For every fake McAfee order email your friend gets, you get three missives from African, Swedish, Jordanian, and Australian princes trying to take your money—plus two fake package tracking texts and…Read more...

Maintaining healthy teeth is obviously important for us, but the same is also true for our cats. Although we may not think about a cat’s dental health quite as often as ours—and attempting to brush their teeth can be its own battle—cats can develop their own dental issues, including abscessed teeth, gingivitis, or a…Read more...

If you collect video games, or are holding onto a batch of your childhood favorites, chances are you have more than a few loose carts and discs in your collection. Many retro games came in flimsy cardboard boxes, and I’m willing to bet I wasn’t the only person whose family got rid of game cases in favor of those giant…Read more...

Is it possible to go shopping for a life partner? According to the latest TikTok trend, it might just be: “Home Depot dating,” which has racked up more than 6 million views on the social media app, first started as videos of single women looking for eligible bachelors among the hammers, paints, and screwdrivers in the…Read more...

I do not own a potato masher. I own a potato ricer, because it’s better at its job. Rather than chasing potatoes around the pot with a masher, I push them through the ricer, extruding them into tiny little bits that can be gently stirred into warmed dairy, reducing the amount of mashing needed, which keeps the…Read more...

Eating a frozen pizza for supper can feel a little like giving up, but you can’t deny the convenience factor, nor the nostalgic, juvenile appeal. It is, after all, still pizza.

We all google, so we’re all used to Google’s quirks, sponsored links being one of the most visible. These links appear at the top of any given Google search, depending on who pays the most to be there. Even though these links can be largely irrelevant to what you’re actually searching for, sometimes they’re right on…Read more...

Whether it’s a wedge of snacking cheese or a scoop of “I live alone” ganache, having a small treat available at a moment’s notice is good for everyone. The best treats taste great on their own but also play well with others for an excellent nosh. Since you can never have too many fridge-ready snacks in your rotation,…Read more...

The 9th generation, 10.2-inch iPad is selling right now for nearly the cheapest it has ever been since its release in 2021: You can get the 64-gigabyte iPad for $250 at Target and Best Buy, down from its most recent $330 price tag. That’s the lowest price these stores have sold this iPad since its release in 2021, …Read more...

After two shows that delivered mixed results (The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi) and one that was arguably the best thing to come out of a galaxy far, far away since The Empire Strikes Back (Andor), Star Wars is returning to its OG Disney+ roots. After more than two years, The Mandalorian finally returns on March…Read more...

Whatever you think is waiting for us all at the end of our lives, there’s one undeniable universal truth: After you die, someone is going to be left with a large bill. The average cost of a burial is close to $8,000, and the average cost of a cremation is close to $7,000—in a country where the majority of folks would …Read more...

It’s nearly spring, a perfect time to reboot your life, get out of your rut, and try something new. But if you’re goin to learn to tap dance, start studying architecture, learn to cook, or dive into basically anything else that’s brand new to you, you’ll be much more likely to succeed if you don’t do the seven things…Read more...

While it isn’t time yet for the March Feature Drop, it’s still an exciting day to be on Android. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google unveiled nine new Android and Wear OS features users can expect in coming weeks, with some features available starting today. From Magic Eraser dropping on more devices, to new…Read more...

Technically, National Pancake Week ended on Feb. 26, but tell that to the International House of Pancakes, who will celebrate it on Tuesday, Feb. 28 by giving away free pancakes. Whether they’re doing it on a different day to be edgy, who knows and who cares.

Bitter is good. Burnt ends, blackened catfish, crème brûlée, and the giant charred bubble on your pizza pie are just a few examples of how good it can be. The palate can taste five flavors—sweet, salty, bitter, savory, and umami—and the best dishes will work with several, if not all five, to create a harmonious…Read more...

Smartphones these days are powerful. Some can take 8K video, while others rival the speed and performance of desktop computers. However, all that advanced computational power is no match for the formidable force of...a single YouTube video—at least on the Google Pixel.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the federal initiative designed to help low-income Americans access more food—received a temporary boost in response to COVID-19 that is set to end on March 1. These pandemic-era SNAP benefits, known as emergency allotments (EA), are set to expire in 32 states, the…Read more...

Fire up the meme engines: Succession is coming back to HBO Max on March 26 for what we now know is its final season of corporate and familial back-stabbery. I don’t watch it because I find it too depressing, but I’m happy for everyone who delights in this modern-day corporate Game of Thrones, and I can only hope the…Read more...

What if you could create your own personal streaming service? It isn’t a pipe dream: You can actually build your own streaming network that hosts all the shows, movies, and music you already own—all you need to enter the world of media servers is enough hard drive space, a PC, and a stable internet connection.Read more...

Aldi’s coin-hungry shopping carts are iconic. Frequent shoppers often have a designated “Aldi quarter” in their car or in a special pocket, because the store requires a quarter to release each cart from the corral. (You get the quarter back when you return the cart.)Read more...

Sexting is a great tool to use when it comes to spicing up your relationship. Whether you’ve been coupled up for a while or just getting to know someone, sexting can be the perfect foreplay. But when is a good time to initiate sexting, and should you ask the other person first if it’s OK to sext? What are some things…Read more...

You meet someone while on vacation. Sparks fly. You know you’re not going to date forever, but you want to enjoy the time you have together: This is an example of expiration dating. In theory, it sounds pretty good—you both enter a consensual relationship knowing that it won’t last. But is it always a good idea?Read more...

On Feb. 16, the Portuguese prime minister announced he’s ending the golden visa program for new foreign property buyers, which since 2012, has given residency to 11,000 people who bought investment properties in the country. The prime minister points to rising property values as the reason behind ending the visa…Read more...

Everyone loves a good kitchen hack, and one of the most popular examples concerns glass cookware. Between Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok, there are hundreds of posts asserting that all-caps PYREX is the good stuff (aka, borosilicate glass), and all-lowercase pyrex is junk (aka, tempered soda-lime glass). If you stick to…Read more...

If saying “no” all the time has you feeling like the bad guy in the family, it might be time for a communication makeover. An avalanche of “nos” can dim your connection with your children, but there are ways to make “yes” a more regular part of your interactions—without handing over all the decision-making power to…Read more...

Out of all the usual household tasks, washing the floors is one of the easiest to put off (repeatedly). It’s a lot of hassle to go through only to have people walk on the clean floors as soon as they dry.Read more...

Within the span of only a few years, remote office work went from being considered a perk—or something that wasn’t feasible for most people—to a necessity during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then back to being largely thought of as some type of benefit or luxury.Read more...

With an almost infinite amount of information constantly at our fingertips, it helps to be able to read quickly—or at least at a decent clip. Although we may not think of what we do as “reading” in a traditional sense, many TikTok videos and Instagram reels have subtitles and captions, so even if you don’t actually…Read more...

Whether you’re speaking with your colleagues in a meeting, or firing off one last email before lunch, if you work in an office environment, chances are you utilize certain words or phrases that you wouldn’t necessarily use in your personal life. For instance, you probably don’t ask your kids whether table manners are…Read more...

If you’re looking for ways to remove blood stains from clothing, walls, or whatever other surface you may have found it on, we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding any bad behavior and move straight to solutions—because there are quite a few. Some are better than others, though, so you also need to…Read more...

Making really good meatballs isn’t exactly rocket surgery. As long as you season them aggressively and use a light touch while mixing, you’ll be good to go. But I recently discovered an easy way to make an already delicious dish even better: Just toss in some anchovies.

At this point, ChatGPT hardly needs an introduction. The chatbot took the world by storm late last year, and hasn’t let go since, impressing us all with its ability to answer questions and create things while frequently passing the Turing Test. While AI is changing rapidly, faster than many ever predicted, so too are…Read more...

Google’s Magic Eraser is one of the company’s most impressive (and one of its most advertised) features. Who wouldn’t like the ability to instantly erase unwanted people or objects from any photo? And while the feature was a Pixel exclusive from the beginning, Google is now opening the gates to virtually everyone’s…Read more...

A few years ago, I read somewhere that Italians never use onions and garlic in their marinara; it’s always one or the other. Like so many black-and-white cooking “rules” you come across online, this one didn’t stand up to cursory Googling—it might be true in some regions of Italy, but it’s more of an old-school…Read more...

It’s easy to point and laugh at the growing sport of competitive hobbyhorse, but maybe you should actually try it before you do. Maybe you should also try asking a Starbuck barista to surprise you, slacking off at work on Mondays, and busting through your neighbors’ fence like the Kool-Aid Man. These are only some of…Read more...

No matter how modest, any backyard space attached to your home can prove useful—and one easy and popular way to level-up your backyard without too much work (or cost) is to install a backyard shed. If you’re lucky, there was already a shed in place when you bought your house, but you can buy a modest shed at your…Read more...

Poaching is one of my favorite cooking methods. You won’t get a hard sear, crispy skin, or any amount of browning, but that’s alright. Instead, you’ll be rewarded with juicy, tender proteins that are infused with the delicate flavors of whatever you add to your poaching liquid. (Plus, the skin of a poached chicken…Read more...

It might look like fluff, but buttercream frostings are delicate emulsions. When chilly temperatures interfere with this fine balance, buttercream can break. The “break” could refer to the state of the emulsion or to your heart, because the look of broken buttercream is, oh, so sad (and gross). Luckily, fixing a…Read more...

Scrivener 3 is giving their lifetime subscription for 50% off until March 2—both Mac and Windows user can get the program for $30. If you haven’t heard of Scrivener before, it’s a popular writing software that makes writing a lot more structured and easy to organize.Read more...

It seemed like streaming services started with a revolutionary idea—only paying for what you want and cutting out the rest. It worked for a while, but now it seems to have come full circle, with some services like Netflix turning their attention to an ads revenue strategy to sustain themselves. Peacock—which you can…Read more...

Not everyone has a green thumb (although there there are apps for that), and you may never want to be bothered by keeping real plants alive. Fake ones look fine and are way less effort (though you still need to dust them as you would their natural counterparts), but sometimes they look a bit too fake. You can make…Read more...

Most professional software these days has switched to expensive subscription-based models, but not Apple: Final Cut Pro still costs the same $299 it did when the app launched in 2011. Still, three hundred bucks ain’t cheap, leading some to seek, let’s say, “alternative” markets for the app. However, if you’re tempted…Read more...

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Portland was covered in ten inches of snow on Wednesday, which is a lot of snow for a city full of people who don’t know how to drive in snow. This means I’ll be staying home until it melts, and playing a fun game of Chopped with my pantry and chest freezer. I hope to unearth many treasures. Seeing as I’ve already…Read more...

In the State of the Union earlier this month, President Joe Biden called out the service industry’s practice of charging “junk fees.”Read more...

When faced with the prospect of propelling our stupid bodies through another stupid day, most of us appreciate a little jolt of energy to get us going and help us tolerate all of this. There are endless choices for a morning pick-me-up, but America has squarely landed on coffee—three in four Americans report drinking…Read more...

Barney’s coming back, y’all, with Mattel announcing a new, animated update to Barney & Friends, the slightly unnerving 1992–2010 series. It’s a shocking thought, but kids who watched Barney back in the day might reasonably have kids at about the right age to catch the new one. Besides that, Netflix kicked off a reboot…Read more...

Pastas have been used in desserts for some time now, like sweet lokshen kugel or white chocolate orzo pudding, but I confess, I’ve been missing out. All this time, my boxes of macaroni have only been treated to savory dressings, vegetables, and meats. I’ve been cooking with one noodle tied behind my back. Pasta is a…Read more...