Lifehacker

Book-banning is one of those nosy-neighbor hobbies that becomes popular in waves. We’re currently in one of those waves, with parents and concerned citizens “challenging”—and in some cases successfully removing—books from schools and local libraries. Books with Black and/or LGBTQ+ characters and authors are often the…Read more...

You can feel it brewing in the seconds leading up to a big argument. You temper flares, you feel flushed, and you’re suddenly ready to say aloud things you know you will never be able to take back. Blow-out fights—and even regular-sized bickering sessions—can irrevocably damage relationships of all kinds. If you…Read more...

One of my favorite genres of hacks is “elevating” the store-bought. Making a box of cake or brownie mix taste homemade, zhooshing up mayo, using fast food chicken to make chicken salad—this kind of stuff is extremely my bag, baby.

For many, summer is synonymous with the adventure of outdoor activities. Long hikes through the forest, morning runs along the beach, and picnics in the park are just some of the activities I will not be participating in during the next several months, though. That’s because for me, the season is synonymous with one…Read more...

Read more...

Learning or teaching a new board game can be equal parts challenging and maddening. Either you’re the one trying to explain the rules to an apathetic crowd, or you’re being “taught” and are expected to pick up every minute detail from a monotone lecturer. If you’re sick of every game night starting the same way,…Read more...

Ah, the kitchen—a room so vital to modern life it’s become a fraught battleground. Easily the most expensive renovation you’ll ever oversee, an average “midrange” kitchen remodel costs about $76,000, according to Remodeling Magazine. That cost and stress imbues every design decision with heavy emotion and dread, which…Read more...

Decks can be a popular addition that allows you to better enjoy your outdoor space—and to increase the value of your home. But when it comes time to choose between composite, hard wood, and even hybrid, there are several factors to consider, including cost, durability, and aesthetic.Read more...

The modern world is largely safe from the primitives dangers that plagued our ancestors—wild animal attacks are rare; few of us will ever step off a cliff and die because glasses haven’t been invented. This doesn’t mean death and danger have been vanquished. We’ve just forced them into forms that are so new to us as…Read more...

Nigella Lawson’s Molten Chocolate Babycakes set me down the path. In fact, it’s only slightly hyperbolic to say her book, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, made me the food writer I am today. Nigella’s writing is and has always been warm and just sensual enough—in a world of didactic, “optimized” food writing and recipes,…Read more...

Mulch can serve a variety of purposes in a landscaped yard, from helping plants stay hydrated, to keeping weeds away. But if you live somewhere windy, it can also blow away. Even if you don’t live somewhere where it’s blustery on a regular basis, a storm with strong winds can undo hours of hard work.Read more...

When someone has road rage, everyone loses—including their fellow drivers. It can be distressing seeing (and possibly hearing) someone get so angry, not knowing how far they’ll take it.Read more...

Let’s say you walk outside one morning only to find that it appears as though someone—or something—has been digging holes, searching for buried treasure (albeit a relatively small one) in your yard. You’d probably want to get to the bottom of it.Read more...

Although we know that human bodies—including our own—can be gross at times, we’d prefer not to be reminded of it. So when you’re changing your sheets and see that your once-perfectly-white pillows are now covered in a web of yellow and brown-ish stains, it can be unsettling.Read more...

Though it’s not difficult to find distilled water in stores, if you find yourself in a situation where you need (or want) to make it at home, you can do so pretty easily. The good news is that you don’t need any fancy equipment to get the job done. The bad news is that it takes some time. Here’s what to know.

Whether you’ve gotten into houseplants during the pandemic, or have long been a fan of their ability to liven up your living space, you’ve probably amassed quite a collection of pots and other containers for your favorite foliage. Unfortunately, at some point, most people will run out of space on their windowsills,…Read more...

You’re going to die one day. The end of your life is coming and you may not know how, when, or why it will happen, but you can be certain it will. While that’ll be the end for you, your death can be the beginning of life for any number of other organisms. The world will always continue on, but your death can help it…Read more...

I wish I knew how to truly savor things and prolong pleasure, specifically when it comes to things that fall under the Food & Beverage category. Maybe it’s an instinct buried deep in my DNA—a by-product of coming from a long line of war-suffering village stock—but I tend to eat with the voracity of a starved wolf…Read more...

One of my biggest takeaways from taking first aid and CPR classes is that if you’re going to have a medical emergency, do it with a friend. You can’t perform CPR on yourself, after all. But there are plenty of ways you can attempt to handle an emergency if you’re still conscious, so we’ll go through a few of them here.

After dealing with months of limited supplies and aggressive scalpers, buying a graphics card or gaming console is becoming easier. They’re not back to manufacturer suggested retail prices (MSRP) yet, but prices have dropped and availability has increased for all in-demand Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, as well as…Read more...

The idyllic start to any spring morning is waking up to the sun shining and the birds chirping. Unfortunately, this year you may have to compromise a bit on the latter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 30 million cases of the bird flu have been detected in aquatic birds, commercial…Read more...

As a marathon runner, I know what it’s like to push your body to its limits. I know the desire to tack on one extra mile when you’re feeling strong, or to squeeze in one last long run before a big race. I also know what it’s like to narrowly avoid serious burnout and injury due to insufficient fueling and recovery.

Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 novel The Time-Traveler’s Wife was a book that seemed aimed particularly at me. It’s set in Chicago, where I was living when it came out, and I enjoyed following along as the characters rode my busses and ate at my favorite brunch spot. It’s a closed-loop time travel story, which is the best…Read more...

If you use Google Messages on Android, it might be silently stealing away battery life from your phone. And while Google has fixed the issue, the patch might not hit your device for some time. Until then, there are steps you can take to stop the app from putting an unnecessary drain on your battery.

Gardening is often pitched as a relaxing, therapeutic activity—and it is relaxing and therapeutic! But it’s also a sign of how advanced society has become that we can regard growing food as a charming hobby instead of an absolute necessity. On the one hand, that’s a clear sign of mankind’s mastery over the world. On…Read more...

Read more...

This week, the young people are trying to capture the coastal grandmother lifestyle, they are explaining slang to their elders, and they are going to Coachella.

Every time I feel a new season roll in, I think to myself, “It’s pie season!” Summer? Yes. Winter? Yes. Spring? Let’s have pie! Now that spring is here, we’ll start seeing plenty of strawberries, rhubarb, apricots, and cherries grace our grocery stores and farmer’s markets. All of these gorgeous offerings can benefit…Read more...

As the weather gets warmer and you start dragging your lawn and garden equipment out of the garage or basement and into your yard, you may notice that not everything made it through the winter unscathed. For example, you might connect your trusty garden hose to the outdoor waterline only to find that it has sprung a…Read more...

It is spring, which means it is the time of year that my husband and I thought maybe we would move into a larger home. It’s actually the third spring we have thought that—the first being right when the pandemic hit, the second being once we were finally vaccinated and ready to start looking but the housing market did…Read more...

Being “short” is sort of subjective. Medically, a person is considered short if they’re more than two standard deviations below their population’s mean for age and gender, whatever the hell that means. If you’re short, you know it. You don’t need to do a bunch of math. People will tell you, first of all, and you’ll…Read more...

Intermittent fasting was once hailed as a powerful strategy for weight loss, but the latest science shows it’s not exactly a miracle solution after all.

Read more...

Chrome extensions are great. They can help you write better, keep pesky ads at bay, and save you money while you shop, among hundreds of other tasks. However, like Android apps on the Play Store, extensions on the Chrome Web Store aren’t always what they seem. Malware is very much a concern, and you certainly don’t…Read more...

You guys know I’m a fan of the devilishly hard Wordle variations, like Antiwordle and Squardle. But sometimes I just want to play a Wordle variation because I like Wordle and would like to have another serving of it, please. Hurdle obliges, with only a slight twist.Read more...

I hate talking about cast iron. It’s just a pan (or a material with which they make pans, Dutch ovens, etc.), but it’s a pan that brings all the nerds to the yard, and they’re like “my seasoning method is better than yours.” They love to talk about thermal conductivity and polymerization, two subjects I’ve tried my…Read more...

You renovate your bathroom, only to realize too late that you haven’t accounted for sufficient storage in the shower. Or you’ve inherited an existing shower that has exactly one modestly sized niche that will never be big enough to store all your necessary bottles. You might think you’re doomed to a life with one of…Read more...

Sometimes—and for reasons that don’t involve future blackmail plans—you need to record your phone calls. Maybe you’re interviewing someone over the phone and want to refer to the call later, or you’re talking with a shady company that will deny the details of your call without proof. Whatever the case, Android users…Read more...

If you’ve ever tasted New Orleans-style coffee, you may know that some of its unique flavor is due to the addition of chicory. Chicory is the root of an endive plant, which gets roasted, ground, and added into coffee. The use of chicory was introduced by the French as a way of dealing with coffee shortages, and the…Read more...

It’s official: No sector is safe from rising labor and supply costs. Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti recently announced a 3.5% price increase on all items, on top of another 3.5% increase from just in October. Fast food once existed as a cheap and convenient option for those living a life on the go—but with the…Read more...

Gardening can be demoralizing if, after hours of sweaty work, your results are lackluster and your plants decimated by bugs or eaten by deer. Worse is when the flowers you did manage to coax into bloom don’t bother showing up again the next year. That’s why perennials are so important for any flower garden—because…Read more...

Nearly four years ago, Lifehacker’s Senior Food Editor Claire Lower posted an excellent article entitled Surprisingly Good Life Lessons From the Satanic Bible.Read more...

I recently boarded a plane for only the second time since March 2020, and I’m here to tell you: Flying has not gotten any more pleasant. Seats are just as cramped, cabins are just as loud, and flights feel just as full. Airline travel, in general, is a big mess, thanks staff shortages, overbooking, delays,…Read more...

Many gardeners like to use raised beds to grow their bounty—they create a lovely border, limit weeds, and are easier on your back—but they can also be quite costly to fill, especially if they’re more than a foot high. You don’t need to buy several bags of soil to get good quality, nutrient-rich material for your…Read more...

Maybe you’ve hit a career rut, or you need one-on-one guidance to overcome a personal struggle—whatever it is, self-help books aren’t cutting it. Asking for help can be the key to getting ahead. But who exactly should you turn to? If you’ve started your search for guidance, you’ve probably seen three different titles…Read more...

Even though I started this stretching challenge with the idea of finding out whether I could become more flexible, I have to admit that I was kind of secretly hoping it would not work. After all, if it doesn’t work, that means I can quit guilt-free.

There are certain assumptions that are made about Southern cooking that do not apply to me, mostly the ones that hinge on the concept that most Southern food is homemade. My family was quite poor for a very long time—I’m two or three generations removed from living in a house with dirt floors, depending which branch…Read more...

Insurance for body parts has long been part of our cultural mythology. Jennifer Lopez has been dogged by rumors her ass is insured for years, and those rumors persist even though she’s denied them. There are reports that Dolly Parton’s breasts are insured, and Heidi Klum has been open about how both her legs are…Read more...

Eating healthy is fine and all, but a lot of so-called “healthy” eating is either too labor-intensive, too low-calorie, or otherwise not a great value for your money or time. Fortunately, the redditors at r/EatCheapandHealthy have solutions. Today, let’s look at their suggestions for high-protein meals that are easy…Read more...

Some people seem to have a “green thumb”—a natural affinity with houseplants that lets them grow anything, anywhere. I am not one of these people. The only way I can grow anything is by ignoring my natural instinct, breaking things down logically, and following a strict schedule. But my plants live a lot longer thanks…Read more...