Lifehacker

Cheese is crowdpleaser—a perfect product that can be sliced, melted, or otherwise manipulated into something that is a little more involved, like a dip or a cheeseball. Because it’s so good in its own right, it doesn’t need a ton of futzing. You can turn a log of goat cheese or pile of shredded cheddar into an elegant…Read more...

Windows themes offer a unique mix of wallpapers, sounds, and colors to switch between. Many of them come by default, and there are more themes to download from the Windows Store. But you don’t need to look elsewhere to find more themes for your PC. Some of the best Windows themes are just hidden.Read more...

Cycling shoes are a must if you own a spin bike, and they’re extremely common on road bikes, too. The shoes are stiff enough to properly transmit force to the pedals, and the cleats lock you securely into the pedals so that you don’t slide around. With the right shoes, you can efficiently turn the pedals in circles…Read more...

Bubble wrap is the best. It can obviously help you move to a new place without breaking stuff, and of course it’s fun to play with. But it can also do so much more than you might think. Put it in the category of things like vodka, hair conditioner, dryer sheets, and nail polish remover, which all have one stated…Read more...

Your iPhone has some excellent anti-theft features that make it difficult for thieves to use the device. Even if someone wipes your phone, they’ll still need your Apple ID and password to get into it and turn off “Find My”—which they’ll need to do if they ever want to sell it.

Getting hacked sucks. The invasion of privacy is bad enough, but when hackers decide to lock you out of your account entirely, that’s just cruel. Losing access to your years of Instagram photos, stories, and DMs can be heartbreaking, and, until now, it was usually permanent. Luckily, that might not be the case anymore.

In addition to being a global disaster in many ways that matter a good deal more, COVID took a wrecking ball to the film industry, and Hollywood is still cleaning up the debris. Countless films have been re-edited, delayed, and outright cancelled as a result of necessary COVID restrictions, illnesses, financial…Read more...

Oatmeal is one of the great underrated foods for athletes, whether you’re a runner, a weightlifter, or just somebody who wants a filling breakfast before hitting the gym. If you want more whole grains or fiber in your diet, congrats—oats have plenty. If you need carbs to fuel you, oats come through there, as well. And…Read more...

Google annually goes though its web store to find the best and most popular Chrome extensions of the year. It’s no Spotify Wrapped, but it’s a good way to know what made this year special (as far as internet browsing is concerned, anyway). And in 2022, it’s no surprise that AI shows up in a lot of the extensions.Read more...

The first season of Prime Video’s Hunters, a late-’70s action drama about a group of Nazi hunters tracking down surviving members of the Third Reich, premiered in late February 2020. I used to walk by the subway ad for it every day while dropping my kid off at school. Then the school shut down, along with everything…Read more...

A classic tarte tatin is sweet, stuffed with apples, and requires a bit of fussing over a caramel sauce. It’s worth the effort when you’re looking for a sweet dessert, but you can also use the same technique for a dish that’s superbly savory. For a simple, shareable, and rather impressive plate, make a gorgonzola and…Read more...

I don’t know that I’ve ever had a bad spinach and artichoke dip—it’s hard to make something with that much dairy and salt unappetizing. But things that are good can always be great, and I have taken the liberty of compiling four upgrades that can be applied to any spinach and artichoke dip recipe.Read more...

Research on New Year’s resolutions shows that 80% of them fail in the longterm. Given the difficulty of self-improvement, I find a 20% success rate encouraging, but that still means almost everyone who bothers to try doesn’t live up to their own goals. Avoiding these seven New Year’s resolution mistakes won’t…Read more...

For many, the words “office politics” conjure images of manipulating, back-stabbing, or slippery co-workers who kiss-up to the boss and flaunt their influence to get what they want. The words reek of unfairness and are almost always used to refer to the underbelly of the workplace. Many employees flat out refuse to…Read more...

With less than a week to go before Christmas, the kids are probably off from school, high on sugar, and getting antsy for presents, or whatever your family does to celebrate the holidays. At this point, you may be running low on cash and out of options for keeping them entertained while you’re still working.Read more...

During the Great Depression, peanut butter’s low cost and high protein content made it an indispensable ingredient in countless meals and sandwiches. The nut spread—and newer, more allergy-friendly variantions—remain a popular food to this day.Read more...

It’s been nearly 20 years since Keurig machines and K-Cups became a countertop staple in countless American homes (though they’ve been available for offices since the 1990s). And while some find the single-use pods convenient, their relatively high cost and the mediocre flavor of the beverages they result in have made…Read more...

Despite the season’s reputation as a magical time of year full of love and happiness, the holidays can be tough for a lot of people. Sometimes it’s clear why Christmas and the other end-of-year festivities are mentally taxing—like if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one.Read more...

Whether your seasonal affective disorder has kicked in, or you’re feeling the pressure of the holiday season, chances are you could use some comfort food. And if you’ve already gone over your yearly budget, it would be even better if that food was available at a discount, or perhaps even for free.Read more...

It has been a long, wild year. You might not even remember everything that happened. You know who does, though? Google. The search giant just released its Year in Search for 2022, and it’s pretty illuminating. It’s both a trip back through the last 12 months, and also a reminder that you likely didn’t keep up with …Read more...

A Bluetooth speaker is an item found on many wish lists, given how many of us have a smartphone and some kind of music-streaming subscription. Kids can link them to up their handheld video game consoles; teenagers take them along to shoot hoops at a friend’s house; and adults pull them outside for their backyard…Read more...

I’ve always wanted Nintendo to remake the original Legend of Zelda. Sacrilege, I know, but surely there is room for a different take on the adventure classic that not only spawned a franchise, but inspired RPGs across the genre. While there are no plans for an NES Zelda remake anytime soon, there is one way you can…Read more...

We often don’t understand things as well as we think we do. How often have you “learned” something you can’t fully recall later, or that you can’t explain to someone else? While we’ve previously suggested that you write down or discuss a detailed version of your understanding, there’s a related and simpler way of…Read more...

The White Lotus uses straightforward storytelling to explore straightforward themes. People go so nuts for it mainly because the casting is immaculate. The show’s secret sauce is a mixture of big names, recognizable-but-low-profile character actors, and total newbies—then having them turn in career-best (or…Read more...

Another day, another TikTok hack that seems clean and safe but could actually be a total disaster in practice. While some viral hacks actually are as miraculous as they seem, a newer one suggesting you make a reusable dryer sheet by soaking a sponge in a fabric softener solution (and then tossing it in your dryer) is…Read more...

We have officially entered holiday-shipping-panic season, that period of less than 10 days before Christmas when we suddenly realize how quickly the 25th snuck up on us, once again. If you are strategic, though, your packages can (maybe) still make it to their final destination before the big event. Here are some…Read more...

Canned fish has been chic for a few years now, but the chicness mostly extends to whole, preserved fish that come in neat little “tins,” rather than a common circular can. Canned salmon may not be as inherently chic as whatever sardines the hot girls are eating these days, but it’s the base of my favorite Christmas…Read more...

We’ll never truly get to relive the ‘90s again, but technology is getting us pretty darn close. This moment, you could be sitting in your modern home in 2022, surrounded by iPhones, big screen OLED TVs, and smart gadgets of all kinds, all the while experiencing a room decked out with classic posters, old-school TVs,…Read more...

If you have a sweater you love but no longer wear, there’s another way you can give it a new life: Better still, you can give an old piece of furniture new life, as well. Adding some texture or color to a tired piece of furniture with this unique DIY is both simple and thrifty. You can create a truly one-of-a-kind…Read more...

There was a time not long ago that vanilla reigned over the land of aromas. It’s in cookies, cakes, and foaming body wash. It’s written into the tomes of copy on chocolate morsel packages across the globe, and widely accepted as a balancer of flavors. Do you smell that? It’s not vanilla. I detect a hint of Change in…Read more...

Back in the mid-aughts, How I Met Your Mother seemed destined to become the next Friends—the kind of perennially rerun, rewatched sitcom that doesn’t often exist anymore. But then that finale happened, and fan enthusiasm for the show grew quickly less, uh, enthused.

You might fantasize about living a stress-free life, the reality is that stress is as inescapable as the need to eat and drink. Rather than avoiding it altogether, the focus should be on finding ways of managing it.

Unlike Firefox and Chrome, it’s not easy for Mac users to find good ad blockers for Safari. Apple has certain restrictions (like using the Mac App Store to ship updates) that drive ad blocker developers away from their browser, and as a result, your favorites from Firefox or Chrome might not work well on Safari, if…Read more...

“There’s an app for that” is as true in 2022 as it was in 2009. Every day, we dive through tech news, forums, and digital stores looking for the best apps to make your phone and computer even better. As the year draws to a close, we’ve highlighted 22 of our favorite apps we came across in 2022, including social media…Read more...

This week’s pop culture stew contains super men, super cars, and a super old game that kids are rediscovering. To add spice to the mix, I’m throwing in a pinch of “TikTok is the unlikely focus of an international power struggle.”

One of my favorite Christmastime treats is a three-ingredient sweet called “Rolo candy.” (At least that is what my family called it.) You take a mini pretzel, place an unwrapped Rolo on top, then heat it in the oven until the candy softens. Press a pecan half into the chocolate and let it set, and you have a…Read more...

When it comes to flaky, buttery pastry, I’m an equal opportunity eater, but that doesn’t mean that all flaky pastry is the same. Puff pastry and phyllo dough are two important flaky doughs. Both are popular, delicious, and readily available in the freezer section of many grocery stores, but there are some key…Read more...

It is big, big news that scientists were recently able to perform a nuclear fusion reaction that gave off more energy than it consumed. It is also true that this type of reaction could potentially be a useful energy source in the future. Or as physicists are fond of saying, useful nuclear fusion has been “10 years…Read more...

Is it your first holiday season with your boo? One of the biggest stressors during your first Christmas together is deciding what to get for your first big gift exchange. Even if you’ve been together since January and it’s almost been a year, it can feel like an uneasy milestone. You don’t want to get something too…Read more...

New year, same old Disney+ streaming strategy: Add a bunch of fairly obscure older series and movies while stringing along subscribers with that sweet, sweet franchise content. In this case, that means lingering episodes of National Treasure: Edge of History and Willow and the launch of a new season of Clone Wars…Read more...

The European Space Agency has a challenge for you: Spot asteroid 2015 RN35. They’re calling it the “Christmas Asteroid,” and it’s in view of much of the earth from December 15 through December 19, if you have a telescope and know where to look.

It’s a perennial quirk of the holiday season: trying to pick the perfect gifts for the people in your life you’re super grateful for, but don’t actually know personally. What conveys cheer and thankfulness to a mail carrier and is actually useful? What should you gift your doorman? And what about your kid’s teacher?

Over two thousand years ago, a motley crew of Jews rebelled against their Greek occupiers and reclaimed the Second Temple in ancient Jerusalem. Later, some rabbis added an apocryphal tale to the event about oil lasting, as Adam Sandler would say, eight crazy nights. Today, we commemorate it all by eating fried potato…Read more...

Most people like cheese, but you might know someone who really likes cheese. Lives for cheese. Breathes cheese? If you have one of those people in your life, get them a gift that allows them to do more of what they love. Because unrolling one of those cheese art posters isn’t as good as unwrapping a wedge of the real…Read more...

It was a big year for podcasts, and it takes a lot to stand out in the sea of fantastic storytelling, original reporting, and comedy delights—and I should know. I just received my Pocket Casts Wrapped report—I listened to 97 days and 17 hours of podcasts in 27 different categories. That’s 1,176 shows or 4,347…Read more...

If you’re nostalgic for the days when you could order a package of four or eight COVID tests free from the government, we have a holiday surprise for you: The free COVID tests program, which was suspended in August, is back for a limited time—and with fortuitous timing, given rates of seasonal illness are elevated…Read more...

During an argument, you might feel that you need help from a family member or friend to help find some middle ground with your partner. While asking for support from a third party might sound like a good idea, it can also be a sign of triangulation, which is a form of emotional manipulation.Read more...

According to a new report on Platformer, after alienating advertisers and losing revenue, Twitter plans to sell location data and phone numbers to advertisers, whether you like it or not. Now is a great time to remove that information from your account. Even if Musk’s platform never implements these changes, you’re…Read more...

Google Chrome users in the U.S. can now launch select video games directly from Google Search results, much like you already could for movies, music, and TV shows.

A mimosa is a welcome start to any day, but it’s needed on Christmas morning, just to take the harsh edge off the sound of ripping wrapping paper. The combination of sparkling wine and fruit juice doesn’t need much in the way of tweaking, nor does it really call for an exact recipe—but it could use a little nuance.…Read more...