Lifehacker

Ideally, you wouldn’t store any sensitive personal information in the cloud. There’s always a risk your online accounts will get hacked, so in theory you’re better off storing all your documents and data offline. But that’s not really how the world works anymore, and the convenience (or necessity) of maintaining easy…Read more...

Wining and dining is a Valentine’s Day tradition, but I tend to prefer snacking and cocktailing. If you would like to make a similar pivot, you’re going to need some cocktail recipes. Lucky for you and your beloved, we have plenty.Read more...

It’s a fundamental fact of human life that we lose about 100% of the umbrellas we buy. Just about everyone has experienced that moment when you’re six blocks away from the restaurant and the rain starts to fall, bringing to mind a crystal clear image of your umbrella on the floor under your table. This is why every…Read more...

If you’re a people-pleaser, you’re probably empathetic and giving. Don’t get me wrong—these are admirable qualities to have. At the same time, if you’re always accommodating other people’s wants and needs, it shouldn’t be at the expense of your own.

YouTube’s algorithm is designed to keep your eyeballs glued to video after video (after video, after video...). The dangers of this rabbit hole are well-documented. However, for every ideological radicalization enabled by YouTube, I like to think there’s at least one innocent, newfound pop culture obsession discovered…Read more...

In addition to our skin and our hair, winter also can take a toll on our eyes—and for many of the same reasons. When it’s cold outside, we want to spend more time inside, where it’s warm and dry. Unfortunately, these warm and dry conditions have a tendency to make our eyes feel dry and irritated.Read more...

Although there’s no rule saying that we have to like everyone we encounter, if it’s someone we have to deal with on a semi-regular basis—like a co-worker, relative, or a friend’s partner—we are expected to be at least civil towards them. This is the case even if we really dislike them, and want to leave a room as soon…Read more...

You’re probably already familiar with classic fruit/flavor pairings like apples and cinnamon, or cranberries and oranges. But what about grapefruit and tarragon? Or peaches and maple syrup?Read more...

Once upon a time, motivational posters adorning the walls of guidance counselors’ offices and office cubicles told us that “failure is not an option.” But at some point, that messaging eased up on failure, but found a new worst outcome: Regret.Read more...

If you’ve ever scrolled through a plant-focused Instagram account and wondered how the person’s home could possibly look so green and lush, there could be a few different explanations. The cynical ones involve the person having the financial resources to fill their space with countless plants—and possibly pay someone…Read more...

“I never smile if I can help it,” Dunder Mifflin Assistant (to the) Regional Manager Dwight Schrute tells the camera in an episode of The Office. “Showing one’s teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life.”

Super Bowl LVI kicks off on Feb. 13 at 6:30 p.m. ET (3:30 p.m. PT). That leaves you two days to figure out how to stream the game online if you don’t have live TV or don’t feel comfortable watching at your favorite local drinking spot due to the still-cresting omicron wave.Read more...

A ton of people are going to bet on the Super Bowl this Sunday. Sports betting is legal in some form in 30 states, and 31.4 million Americans are expected to put down a total of $7.61 billion on the game, according to projections from the American Gaming Association.

Most people new to the gym don’t give much thought to which direction the plates face on a barbell. But serious lifters have very strong opinions about it, and in time, you too will need to choose a side. But why does anyone care? Let’s examine the controversy.

Everybody loves a good mystery, and some internet users have taken that to the next level. Sleuthing forums and online crime-solving groups have emerged across the web, letting ordinary people help solve high-profile cases.Read more...

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Quick, how do you hold your phone? Is the bottom of it resting on your pinkie, while you cradle the back with your index, middle, and ring fingers, and your thumb does all the scrolling? Alas, like the many other seemingly easy, intuitive things we do, it is wrong.

When you’re contemplating having children, you might conjure up a certain image: Well-behaved children playing nicely and taking turns on the swing in the backyard, or family movie nights where everyone agrees on the movie, or family dinners where everyone eats what you serve without complaint. Once you actually have…Read more...

My most looked-forward-to appetizer at any casual party is pigs in a blanket. I expect to see them at least three times a year—Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and whatever Super Bowl party I attend. If they’re missing, I’ll have something to say about it. These petite bites blend sweet, buttery,…Read more...

Video games have a reputation for frenetic action, but there is a whole clasee of simulation games that fly in the face of that conventional wisdom. They don’t put you in an imaginative situation, hand you unlimited power, or raise your adrenaline by creating life-or-death conflict. They aren’t exciting. Instead,…Read more...

Baseball might be the American pastime, but our version of football is a distinct cultural phenomenon. As much as the sport itself reflects our values, football movies go a step further, allowing filmmakers to craft and coax a straightforward story out of a game that can be chaotic and unpredictable.

Last month, we warned you about a major security flaw affecting Apple’s Safari browser. This flaw potentially allowed hackers on one website to steal your personal information from other open sites, which is, you know, bad. After months of delay, Apple finally patched this gaping security breach, just in time for…Read more...

Living in the city doesn’t mean you can’t ever leave the city.

For the longest time, a Nintendo generation meant one console and one handheld. The Game Boy alongside the NES. The Game Boy Advance next to the GameCube. The Nintendo DS and the Wii. In the Switch, Nintendo combined console and handheld into one, seemingly ending the need for a traditional mobile Nintendo system. But…Read more...

I have a new item for your to-do list: Make a better to-do list. As I’ve written before, I’m a huge proponent of tracking all the little details of your life with spreadsheets. I would never dream of dismissing the mighty pen and paper, but spreadsheets offer the ability to organize every corner of your life with much…Read more...

This week, young people are posting puzzling videos about housework, finding naked men in the trunks of their cars, and virtually riding horses together. It’s a strange and wonderful world.

If you frequently keep running out of storage space on your computer, it’s past time to take just a few steps to sort your problem out. Many of us tend to accumulate tons of junk on our computers, and while you might think to buy more storage, you should also consider just taking a few steps to teach your computer…Read more...

The vast majority of umbrellas are panic-purchased from drug stores or randos on the street during a sudden rainstorm. Therefore, the vast majority of umbrellas are purchased after conducting exactly zero research. And that is how we end up with a collection of ragged, cheap umbrellas that collapse into a useless…Read more...

In the United States, school sex ed classes don’t really educate you about sex; most of the time, they’re just trying to scare you away from doing it at all. In the process, it’s easy to pick up misconceptions, or to be subjected to straight-up lies. So we’d like to clear the record, and help you un-learn some of…Read more...

Oh, laundry. Dreaded fucking laundry. While looking at a basket full of freshly folded threads for the whole family is an enormously satisfying—if mundane—accomplishment, getting there is often a slog through procrastination, days of using the basket as a closet, and lots of heavy sighing.

This Sunday, I will be watching the Super Bowl with my father for the first time in literally forever. We’ve watched a lot of football together, but almost all of it has been SEC games. Ironically, I will not be cooking anything. My dad told me my stepmom likes to make chili dogs and Rotel dip for such occasions, and…Read more...

Apple silicon is known for its efficiency, resulting in long periods of MacBook use and sleep without needing to return to the charger. Lately, however, it seems MacBooks of all kinds are draining fast; you might open your fully charged MacBook to find it completely dead, with no clear explanation why. Not only do we…Read more...

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Walking around naked. Belting show tunes in the shower. Basking in some peace and quiet. There are plenty of perks to living alone. At the same time, there are plenty of concerns, from handling bills, to dealing with emergencies, to generally getting lonely.

Two years ago, I reached my cacio e pepe saturation point. The combination of Pecorino Romano (or, in some recipes, Parmigiano Reggiano) and pepper was everywhere, and on everything. It still is. And though I still think we should collectively expand our pasta repertoire, even I must admit that cheese and pepper are…Read more...

Comedian Bob Saget’s January death was recently revealed by his family and the Florida medical examiner’s office to be a result of accidental head trauma. “They [the authorities] have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep,” his family’s statement…Read more...

No matter what happens in the world, your local library remains an oasis of calm—a place where you can teach yourself, conduct research, or simply find a quiet space during your busy day. But modern libraries are a lot more than just book repositories; they’ve evolved into community hubs that offer a wide range of…Read more...

A floating platform bed can add an interesting aesthetic and dimension to your bedroom—and they’re relatively inexpensive to make and install yourself. There are some things to consider before you dive in, though, from both a design and safety perspective.Read more...

Is Valentine’s Day a beautiful tribute to one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience, or a made-up holiday designed to make you spend money you don’t have on candy nobody wants? Perhaps it’s both, but there’s no question many Feb. 14 rituals are outdated and limiting, proceeding from the assumption that…Read more...

Have you ever been talking about something with a friend, only to receive an ad for the same thing later? It makes you wonder whether your phone is listening to you and what you can do to stop it. But just how much do our phones spy on us?

Like every other aspect of life, the housing market has gone absolutely wild over the last few years as prices have soared by double digits in basically every market. The median selling price for a house in November, 2021 was 25 percent more than it was less than two years before, which is, again, wild. And there are…Read more...

Hangover cures simply do not exist. Every single purported remedy floating around out there is just something that will keep your mind or your stomach busy while your body finishes metabolizing the alcohol. You may feel like you’re taking care of yourself, but you’re only having a weird breakfast and waiting for…Read more...

The glory days of dedicated Super Bowl “counter-programming” are gone. When you can stream whatever you want on Netflix to prove how much you don’t even care about the Super Bowl, there isn’t a lot of point to networks dedicating programming to countering the game. But there are still a few alternatives to the big,…Read more...

It was a joyous occasion when Apple finally released its own Files app for the iPhone and iPad. We all thought Finder made its way to the iPhone. But the Files app is no Finder from the Mac. In fact, it’s severely removed from one of the simplest and easiest file managers on any platform. If you’ve used the Files app…Read more...

For a while, I held out on getting an Amazon Prime membership. Fancying myself an advance planning wunderkind, I saw no need to pay $100 a year for free shipping on things I could get free shipping on if I thought ahead and bought them at least two weeks in advance. How hard was that? And then I had a third kid, got a…Read more...

My most successful adult birthday party was my most recent one. For my 35th year, I had friends and family gather in my newly-acquired backyard for eating, drinking, and general merriment. It was a potluck with a very simple theme: Dips & Drinks.

Following months of controversy surrounding Spotify’s business partnership with Joe Rogan, artists including Neil Young, India Arie, and Crosby, Stills and Nash are pulling their music from Spotify’s library, and users are migrating to other platforms. This exodus raises an important question: If you want to move to a…Read more...

Plenty of human snack foods are bad news for dogs, as you may remember from our advice not to give your dog turkey skin on Thanksgiving and to keep them away from all kinds of candy, not just chocolate, on Halloween. So you won’t be surprised to learn that your Super Bowl party spread also has a bunch of things you’ll…Read more...

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Do you have a preschooler or toddler? Do they toddle and do adorable things like giggle uncontrollably when you pretend to bump into walls, say “blankely” instead of blanket, and occasionally send an aggressive spray of their own spittle in your direction? Oh wait, that last one’s not actually cute.