Lifehacker

Adding walkways to your garden can make it more inviting and cut down on your weeding and mowing. Paying someone to install pavers isn’t cheap, but there are ways to DIY beautiful, low maintenance garden paths that won’t require you to rent heavy equipment or break your budget. Here are some ideas to get you started.Read more...

Whether or not you give much thought to the colors you put on in the morning, you’re probably aware of some of the cultural meanings that comes with certain hues of clothes. For example, in many Western cultures, wearing black has traditionally been a sign that a person is in mourning (or at least attending a funeral,…Read more...

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Even if you’re a peaceful person, you could get hit. And if you’ve never had self-defense training, experience with fighting, or even a fleeting thought about what you’d do in that moment, you can find yourself on your ass with no clue what to do next—and that could be an opportunity for your attacker to punch you more…Read more...

I was recently on a flight home from visiting some family, and the guy sitting in the aisle seat a few rows up from me refused to let anyone past him. He dozed in his seat and slumped into the aisle, preventing the drinks cart from moving through, and the flight attendants had to physically shove him upright to get…Read more...

There are three inevitabilities in life: death, taxes, and software updates. Programs like Chrome can never be perfect, and security flaws will inevitability be discovered—the goal is just to squash those flaws with an update before bad actors can take advantage of them. Today, Chrome and Edge users find themselves in…Read more...

As many houseplants and flowers mature, they outgrow the original pots and containers they called home and need to move into something bigger. And while reusing the pot is a great, sustainable option, it’s important to make sure that it’s cleaned thoroughly before moving a new plant in and having it set down roots.…Read more...

Along with puzzles, knitting, and baking banana bread, backyard astronomy was something a lot of people got into at the beginning of the pandemic. Two years later, there may not be the same enthusiasm for checking the weekly night-sky forecast and adding upcoming meteor showers to your calendar, but it’s an activity…Read more...

Windows has always had a bloatware problem (even if Samsung has recently claimed the crown in that department). Bloatware is an umbrella term for apps, services, and programs you don’t need, and never asked for, and Windows comes preinstalled with a boatload of them.

Cheat codes were once an ubiquitous video game feature, but these days they’re rarely included—and if they are, it’s usually as little more than a nostalgic wink to classic games. However, there’s a way to add helpful effects like invincibility mode to some games using Cheat Engine.Read more...

Everyone lies sometimes. Toddlers, kindergarteners, fourth graders, tweens, teens, and yes, even us—the mature, sage adults. We’ve all sugarcoated the truth at one time or another to spare someone’s feelings, get out of an onerous task, or save face while bailing on previously laid social plans.

Spring has officially started, and if that makes you want to get out and explore, you’re not alone. But with gas prices continuing to soar, a road trip may not be the most cost-effective way of doing that right now.Read more...

In a perfect world, we’d all eat seasonally available local produce that we’ve purchased directly from farmers (or farmers’ markets). But that’s not an option for everyone (especially since there are entire neighborhoods that don’t have access to affordable fruits and vegetables).Read more...

Spare tires fall into the category of things you forget about until you desperately need them. But that’s not exactly the safest approach.Read more...

If I had to pick one bottle of bitters to use for the rest of my life, it would undoubtedly be Angostura. Ubiquitous behind bar counters, distinctly dressed in its yellow cap and oversized paper label crowded with dizzyingly tiny script, Angostura “Aromatic” bitters are easy to identify both by look and taste. I often…Read more...

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Weekends are a time to rest, recharge, goof off, engage in your hobbies, and have fun. Oh, unless you have kids. Then they are a time to beg them to go outside, referee sibling brawls, entertain them every moment they’re not plastered to a screen, and count the hours until they go back to school.

While dating apps have become a staple of modern life over the past decade or so, they’ve always been a little hard to use. Some people treat the apps like a game, racking up first dates and quick hookups, while others are swiping in the pursuit of love and connection. It’s difficult to know what the person on the…Read more...

When you think of music festivals, do you think of muddy, gross displays of overcrowding like the legendary Woodstock festivals? Or do you have not-so-fond memories of soaked shoes and shivering through the tinny sound of distant bands as you struggled to find your will to live? Perhaps you swore off festivals the…Read more...

Whether you have an expansive yard or a collection of pots on a fire escape, all gardeners share a lust for color. Bold flowers exploding into glorious bloom are not only an exciting sign of warmer weather, but they’re a beautiful addition to any gardening project, and provide food for our beleaguered pollinating…Read more...

Instagram has finally brought back the ability to view your feed in chronological order. The default feed on Instagram mixes recent posts with older ones, which makes it hard to tell which posts are actually new. The app also adds clutter to your feed in the form of “suggested” posts, from accounts you do not follow.…Read more...

At this point, Wordle needs no introduction. The game not only inspired many of us to enjoy guessing words every day, it also inspired a wave of clones and spin-offs, some of which were just as fun as the original. This latest one, however fun, turns up the difficulty dial to levels I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.

The Academy Awards are upon us, and you still have a bit of time to catch up on the nominated films...but not a lot. Theater-to-streaming windows are shorter than ever, which makes catching the nominees easier than ever, but ever-expanding runtimes (the average length of this year’s Best Picture nominees is a…Read more...

The water dispenser on your fridge is a modern convenience that many of us take for granted. Usually, it tastes better than the tap and it’s perfectly chilled. But sometimes, the dispenser can develop issues that cause the water to taste funky, even if the fridge itself is new. Here are some potential causes and…Read more...

Last week, I discovered that I can touch my toes (and maybe you can, too). In the past I never really felt like I got much out of stretching, and I know that it doesn’t do much to prevent injury or improve performance. But I practice what I preach when it comes to trying things you don’t like to see if maybe they’re…Read more...

We know communication is the bedrock of any success romantic relationship, and that includes how we communicate our needs and desires in the bedroom. So why does talking dirty seem so…awkward? As simple as it might look in movies and porn, in real life dirty talk doesn’t always flow off the tongue quite as easily as…Read more...

Funny, stirring, weird, embarrassing: There are all sorts of reasons to love an acceptance speech. The greatest sin one can commit in giving one isn’t, as some seem to think, forgetting to thank your agent: it’s being boring. We love to be moved and inspired by a speech, no question, but an off-color joke, a lost…Read more...

Do you have something you’re always forgetting to bring on your travels? For a while I was always forgetting to bring a purse on work trips—I always had a laptop bag, but who wants to carry that just to go out to dinner?—and I keep forgetting to bring a screwdriver when I go camping, to detach the little handle my…Read more...

With food costs rising, many people are contemplating starting a garden. This makes sense, since human beings have been growing their own food for thousands of years. The stuff just comes out of the ground and literally grows on trees. Gardening offers a lot of benefits: It can be spiritually and emotionally…Read more...

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Running a restaurant requires a lot of hard work—hard work that’s only gotten harder in recent years with rising labor costs, supply chain difficulties, and the impact of a little thing known as the global pandemic, aka the Era of Staying Home and Learning How to Make Your Own Bread and Fancy Meals. And all of this is…Read more...

Parenting can be a full-contact sport, from the early days of trying to prevent your toddler from falling off playground equipment to tending to your teenager’s busted elbow after they (unsuccessfully) attempt a new skateboard trick. As much as you try to keep your kids in one piece, there is going to be blood—and…Read more...

If you’re interested in spending more time in the yard this summer, but need to increase your shaded areas to make it more cool and comfortable, a shade sail might be for you. Unlike a roof, a shade sail is intended to let air circulate through it while providing a cooler spot. Shade sails are also removable, making…Read more...

Growing your own food is immensely satisfying—but only when you get a crop that’s delicious, plentiful, or definitely worth the effort. It’s a different story when you’ve spent all summer doting on a single eggplant that turns out to not even be that good. To know where to focus your gardening efforts, here are the…Read more...

I like to knit, sew, and do assorted crafts. So, for a long time, I was a big fan of the Jo-Ann flyers that would come in the mail. There would always be at least one really valuable coupon, giving you 40% off any full price item, which I would usually save for a big cut of fabric. But you couldn’t use it if your…Read more...

At the time of this writing, Elden Ring has sold more than 12 million copies, putting it in the rarified ranks of the top-selling video games normally dominated by massive mainstream franchises like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden. That’s an impressive feat for FromSoftware—a development studio whose…Read more...

Alcohol has its time and place. Most of former are with friends (although a solo wine night is dreamy), and most of the latter are in a glass or, occasionally, a saucepan. Yet while imbibing spirits and cooking with a splash of wine are wonderfully traditional, baking with booze doesn’t get enough attention. This is…Read more...

What is the United States anyway? Sure, it’s a nation made up of 50 states that covers a good deal of a continent. But as my fifth grade social studies textbook would have you believe, it’s also made up of a righteous people with a common history and a shared set of beliefs and ideals that include truth, justice, and…Read more...

Not entirely unlike Inside Out a few years back, the new Pixar film Turning Red stars a character confronting her own adolescence and the physical and emotional horrors of puberty. Without going into depressing detail, it has generated controversy for a number of truly dumb reasons.Read more...

If you’ve ever been around kids for any length of time, you’ve surely asked yourself: Why, why on Earth, would a person eat the inner contents of their disgusting nose? The most basic answer is: Kids are gross, and they do gross things. But more specifically, in the words of a child I know (I’ll never say who): “I eat…Read more...

There was a time—and not so long ago—when catching all the movies vying for Academy Awards before the statues were handed out basically necessitated living in a big city rife with art house theaters and spending a small fortune on tickets. But no more: Thanks to the rise of streaming and the effects of COVID, windows…Read more...

When it comes to landing—and holding onto—a job these days, much of the conventional wisdom you learned growing up has been rendered irrelevant. Forget the advice that you have to keep your personal and professional lives totally separate; what’s the protocol for following your boss back on Instagram?

The term “brain fog” can mean many different things, from the afternoon sleepiness you get after a bad night of sleep to the short-term memory loss associated with dementia. Generally speaking, brain fog can consist of memory problems, an inability to focus, or a lack of mental clarity. Although brain fog isn’t a…Read more...

None of us expected we’d have as many conversations about toilet paper as we have since the beginning of the pandemic, when stock shortages and mad rushes made TP a hot commodity. In the chaos, you may have even considered alternatives, from bamboo paper to bidets, or you might be considering switching now.

When Nintendo dropped The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time back in 1996, the gaming world was irrevocably changed. The 3D action-adventure title revolutionized the genre, inspiring a whole new generation of games. While the game is still a banger in 2022 (it just launched on Switch late last year as part of the…Read more...

Whether you rent your home or are in the market to buy, there’s hasn’t been any good news about availability or affordability in a long time. Purchase prices have shot to record highs, and rent has seen double-digit growth every month for the last seven months, up 17.1% in February 2022 over the previous year, …Read more...

For my money, Russian Doll is one of the best original series Netflix has ever produced: a perfectly formed jewel of a miniseries crafted around one of my favorite fiction tropes (time loops rule) and anchored by an irresistible comeback performance from star/writer/co-creator Natasha Lyonne.

Tweets have consequences. Just last week a writer revealed he was denied a job opportunity for a tweet about wanting to “burn down” Whole Foods. The clearly facetious arson tweet in question? It was posted over three years ago.

Our national return to the office means a return to all the little indignities we thought we’d left in the pre-pandemic days. The barista hands you your coffee and as you head out, you sip it and discover they got your order wrong, but you’re running too late to go back. There are no open seats on the train, so you…Read more...

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