Lifehacker

For a nostalgic take on Easter this year, why not make your very own hot cross buns at home? Whether it’s baking them the traditional way or giving them a modern-day twist, we’ve got you covered with some great recipes.

I think it’s safe to say, if you’ve lived in America for any length of time, you’ve probably eaten ice cream. From sundaes and apple pie accompaniments, to root beer floats and the almighty summer cone, its popularity is legion. According to a study conducted by Yahoo Food, ice cream is America’s favorite dessert. (It…Read more...

Later this week, I’m sure you’ll notice people walking around with crosses smudged on their foreheads. Maybe you’ll think, “Oh, right. Ash Wednesday, which is...some kind of religious day.” And you’d be right—it is some kind of religious day, and if you want to know more, here are the whats, whys, and wherefores of…Read more...

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An estimated 30 to 40% of Americans experience insomnia symptoms each year—and that was before everything went sideways. Today, those numbers are likely to be much worse, and it can be a real struggle to deal with, as it impacts just about every aspect of your life. But cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia…Read more...

On social media, what was once conventional beauty wisdom can easily start to trend after a quick rebranding to make it seem like a brand-new, cutting-edge tip. Just as easily, it can be replaced with another hot new trend, which could contradict the first one. Remember how beauty gurus used to insist you should put a…Read more...

I always pre-rinse my dishes. While I’m no nutcase—I don’t actually wash them before placing them in the dishwasher racks—leaving the remains of a runny egg, clingy sauce, or (gasp) oatmeal on my crockery simply feels wrong.

I’m not saying that cryptocurrency, “meme stocks,” and NFT are gigantic scams. They’re neither multi-level marketing schemes for computer nerds, nor fancy pyramids that are likely to end in heartbreak for anyone who puts money into them. Other people are saying these kinds of things. But I’m not.

One time passwords, otherwise known as OTPs, are great for keeping your accounts safe. They force anyone looking to sign into an app or site to not only know the username and password, but also provide a one-time code from a trusted device. Bu if you’ve ever received your OTPs via text, you know they can start to add…Read more...

No matter our age, we should never stop learning, growing, and expanding our understanding of the world around us. While this fact can lead to beautiful epiphanies, it can also lead to utter humiliation. As I write this, someone somewhere just had their pronunciation of “Tupperware” corrected—much to the joy of the…Read more...

Laptops have sure come a long way. The first computer that can be considered a true laptop was the Osborne 1, released in 1981. It weighed a spritely 25 pounds, had a 5-inch screen, and cost $1,800—about $5,567.29 in today’s money. It was an instant hit, but its sales collapsed as competitors entered the market. Just…Read more...

Unless your job involves working with building codes, they’re probably not something you encounter or think about on a regular basis. Though we may refer to a questionable electrical setup in an apartment, or a building where several doors are blocked or inaccessible as looking like they’re “not up to code,” most of…Read more...

When we think of food poisoning, it’s usually in the context of the frequent food recalls on everything from salads, to onions, to dried spices.Read more...

When it comes to putting together your arsenal of standard household products, you probably already have things like white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and nail polish remover in a closet somewhere, or under the sink. But what about glycerin?Read more...

Let’s get real: Sometimes accent walls can look more like accident walls—where someone ran out of paint, and never finished the job. Maybe it was their choice of color, or the wall they selected, but whatever it was, it’s not working. And yet, Instagram is plastered with posts from design accounts showing perfectly…Read more...

Do you remember what it feels like to genuinely be bored? Not like being bored at work and trying to get the hours to pass faster. But the kind of boredom you experienced as a child in the waiting room of the dentist’s office—where there were no toys, you had already read the only issue of Highlights magazine…Read more...

Propagating plants can be hit-or-miss—especially for beginners. Instructional TikTok or Instagram videos make it look so easy. And while sometimes it is, other times you’re left with a hacked-up parent (original) plant, and nothing to show for it.Read more...

Players are finally jumping into Elden Ring, one of the year’s most anticipated video games. It received universal praise among critics and holds one of the highest all-time review score aggregates on Metacritic and OpenCritic, but all those perfect scores couldn’t predict Elden Ring’s launch-day performance woes.Read more...

With so much conflicting financial advice available, it can be hard to keep it all straight, much less figure out which one is best for you. Some approaches are old-fashioned, tried and true; others are trendy—popularized by financial experts with large media platforms. You may have heard of some of these buzzed-…Read more...

For reasons unknown to the universe, a bag of mung bean sprouts is always just a bit too much for whatever dish you’re making. Even if you doubled the recipe, somehow there’s always one or two handfuls leftover the next day—and if this has ever happened to you, you’re well aware that the next day is probably your last…Read more...

While freezing can be a great way to preserve many foods before they spoil, some foods simply don’t freeze well. When it comes to freezing eggs, however, the advice is decidedly mixed, even here at Lifehacker. In the past, we once advised that freezing eggs is a giant pain and not worth the effort; we later said that…Read more...

Depending on whom you ask, blockchain technology is either a revolutionary and disruptive development or a meaningless marketing term representing an overhyped concept. Whatever you think of the underlying technology, you can’t deny that blockchain-based assets like cryptocurrencies—and more recently, non-fungible…Read more...

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Evernote is a proper riches to rags story. Once the default note-taking app for anyone and everyone, it is now incredibly hard to love. And it’s not so much to do with the app itself (which has tried its best to update itself with the times), but with the company: With every new update, the Evernote free plan becomes…Read more...

It’s a strange day to be writing about pop culture, but much like the TikTokers below who are taking stupid walks for their “stupid” mental health, I will trudge on to tell you about a new take on an older meme, what “goblin mode” means, and why everywhere is starting to look like everywhere else. I guess I’m just a…Read more...

There’s a reason it’s called “accepting” a compliment—it’s a true undertaking to receive praise. You want to do so in a way that feels humble, confident, and gracious all at the same time. But how?

As the adults of the world watch Russia invade Ukraine, unleashing what many fear will be the biggest war in Europe since 1945 and potentially affecting global fuel, food, and metals prices (among the obvious other impacts of war), our kids may be absorbing not just our words, but also our tension. Whether they’re…Read more...

Your bathroom should be a relaxing oasis, right? At least that’s what we’re led to believe. It’s hard to think about optimal relaxation when you primarily use yours to bathe small children who leave tablespoons of toothpaste in the sink and try to “paint” the walls with soapy water and bath crayons on a nightly basis.…Read more...

If you have a standard lawn of grass outside your home, you may have had occasion to wonder if our ancestors were crazy. How in the world did grass become the de facto ground covering? Grass is a pain in the ass: It requires constant tending, looks janky if you don’t mow it, will turn brown on you in a heartbeat if…Read more...

Over the past few years, a trip to Antarctica has gone from “rare and treacherous expedition” to “mainstream vacation.” However, as numerous sources have pointed out—see this New York Times report, or this 2014 John Oliver segment—the rise in tourism to Antarctica is a serious threat to the environment.

The sum of human knowledge—and millions of people’s perspectives—are available on your phone. Unfortunately, not everyone sharing information is reliable. Some people or sources might want to deliberately mislead you, while others just might be doing it out of ignorance.

Throw blankets—along with mattresses and duvet covers—are the types of household items whose cleanliness tends to be taken for granted. Because we may only use them an hour or two each day, it’s easy to forget them when laundry day arrives. But considering they largely exist in common areas, where all manner of food,…Read more...

When you click a PDF link on Google Chrome, it opens the file in a new tab by default. That’s good if you’re only interested in quickly reading it, but if you’re trying to make changes, merge multiple files, or remove a page, you’ll have to save the PDF to your computer and open it in another app. And while that’s not…Read more...

When it comes to baking, many of the timeless “rules” we all know (and abide by) maybe be somewhat rooted in circumstantial fact or science, but largely are myths that are holding us—and our sweet treats—back. It’s time to reevaluate everything you thought you knew about baking, particularly when it comes to the use…Read more...

If you own a car, you also own at least four tires—five if you’ve got an actual full-size spare in the trunk instead of one of those humiliating donuts. At every level from single-car owner to tire yard proprietor, there are many tires to be owned. The point is, most of us do. Still, very few of us understand how to…Read more...

Buying avocados is always a bit of a crapshoot: They tend to ripen at unpredictable intervals, with that fleeting moment of ripeness coming and going before you have a chance to eat them. Sure, you can freeze them, but that does mean a change in texture, which might not always work for what you want.

Twitch streaming integration has returned to Xbox consoles. Microsoft dropped Twitch integration back in 2017 in favor of its own streaming platform called Mixer, which is now defunct, but Xbox players can once again watch and broadcast on Twitch directly from their Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S dashboard without the…Read more...

Winter weather can challenge even the toughest, most motivated runners. With less daylight, frigid temps, unpredictable wind, and slippery conditions, it can be tough some days just to get out the door.Read more...

Possums look like scraggly, ratty creatures—or at least that’s what I used to think. You see them trundling across roads at nighttime, sharp-toothed bundles of fur with a long naked tail trailing behind. But one day, I visited a museum that had pelts of dozens of different animals in a hands-on display. Some were…Read more...

The world is poised on the brink of a geopolitical paradigm shift while still reeling from a global pandemic. Traditional markets are growing uneasy and new ones look like they’re in freefall mode already. These are, as they say, interesting times.

When I first joined TikTok in 2020, I couldn’t go a day without seeing videos about abusive narcissists, whether in the form of “toxic” exes, or emotionally absent parents. While narcissists obviously do exist, the content was so prevalent that you’d be forgiven for thinking narcissists were as common as people named…Read more...

After season four of Ozark dropped in January, and the premiere of Inventing Anna in February, it looks like March will be tragically devoid of projects starring the incredible Julia Garner. Nevertheless, we march on, and next month brings a typical Netflix slate of murder (fake, scary), murder (fake, funny), and…Read more...

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When Slack goes down, it’s a big deal. In 2019, the workplace communications software company announced it had over 10 million daily users—and as workers shifted to home office settings amid the pandemic the following year, needing increasing ways to stay connected with colleagues, we can safely guess that number went…Read more...

You may be thinking about sprucing up your abode or prepping your home to sell, and one of the quickest, easiest ways to transform the look of your home exterior and instantly boost curb appeal is to give your front door a fresh coat of paint. But with thousands of colors to choose from, how can you narrow the search…Read more...

I’ve been ghosted and I’ve done the ghosting. When someone ghosts me, I assume it’s because they’re so in love with me, the prospect of texting me back is simply too overwhelming. My name pops up on their phone screen, and for my suitor, it’s like looking at the sun. And so, consumed with emotions too powerful to…Read more...

Good knives have a long shelf life if you take care of them: wash them by hand, store them in a dedicated place, and keep them sharp. Even dull blades can be salvaged.

I’ve always been perfectly content to watch movies by myself. It’s all well and good if it’s 2 Fast 2 Furious or Uncharted, but there are movies that demand a little more attention and reward careful attention—and kids, partners, and even friends can be, frankly, distractions.

Given the proliferation of weird and dangerous internet “challenges” like the Tide Pod challenge, the blackout game, and the milk crate challenge, it’s easy to get all high and mighty about how dumb and ridiculous kids are. But you were dumb once, too. Your parents were dumb. Their parents were dumb. London hipsters…Read more...

Broccoli is a journeyman vegetable. It can be counted on to show up and do its job, and can be great without too much coaxing on your part. Then there are its fancier cousins and friends: broccolini (sometimes called “baby broccoli”), broccoli rabe, and Chinese broccoli.