Lifehacker

If fear and anxiety have gained a hold on your life, you know they can feel like they’re consuming everything. You can medicate or meditate, read self-help books, or try to push through on your own—but it’s always best to admit when you need help, then seek it out.

Changing jobs comes with a lot of hope, but also a lot of risk. No matter how many questions you asked before accepting your job offer, there are always unexpected aspects, not to mention an uncomfortable learning curve. Although many of these may be relatively benign, some of them may be far more frustrating than you…Read more...

Labor day is rapidly approaching, and while I am always down to eat 30-50 feral hot dogs, the late summer drag has invaded my kitchen. I am weary of summer vegetables and run of the mill barbecue and cookouts. I can’t be bothered to make pasta salad. I want comfort food, but not the same old.

Summer is rough on grass. After a few straight months of heat, sun, foot traffic, and often not enough rain, it’s totally normal to see some dead spots. Dead grass is uglier than it is dangerous, but if you’re sick of looking at it, here’s a quick and dirty guide to replanting grass where it’s needed.Read more...

We love to joke that no one uses their smartphone to actually make calls in 2021. And even if that’s kind of true, we obviously need these devices to be able make and take calls. When that functionality is thrown into jeopardy, our phones start to be a lot less reliable and a lot more frustrating. That’s why it’s so…Read more...

The Messages app on the iPhone has never really played all that nice with the Photos app—if someone messaged you a picture and you wanted to find it again later, good luck. That’s all changing in iOS 15 with the new Shared with You integration in the Photos app, plus the addition of a real save button for photos…Read more...

Live Photos are the little moving pictures you never knew you needed. Just like in Harry Potter, these little videos capture the essence of the moment, something that just can’t be captured in a still photo sometimes. Unlike GIFs though, they also record a snippet of sound, making them like micro-short videos of a…Read more...

When we get into arguments with people, such as your on-the-other-side-of-the-political-spectrum uncle, the disrespectful neighbor, or even your messy roommate, it can be all too easy to devolve into a shouting match. However, according to Vanessa Bohns, a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University,…Read more...

Is it a good idea to pay off high-interest credit card debt with money from your 401(k)? Financial experts will almost always say no, but they’ll also concede that there are desperate scenarios in which your retirement fund can alleviate the burden of debt, especially if you can’t pay it off otherwise. Here’s a look…Read more...

While privacy as we used to know it might be dead and gone, there are still plenty of ways to protect yourself against the default tech standards on your iPhone. Apple might be a privacy champion, but there are plenty of settings you can tinker with and change to hide your location from Apple and your many apps.

Like eyebrows, the trend in lips right now is big. Everywhere you turn—but mostly on Instagram—big lips are dominating. There has been much debate about why this is happening and whether it’s all Kylie Jenner’s fault, but the facts are the facts: The trendy look is bigger lips.Read more...

It’s notoriously difficult to find out how much you’ll pay for a surgery or procedure before it happens. For one thing, hospitals don’t charge everybody the same rates; they negotiate prices with insurers and often try to keep the exact numbers secret. There’s good news, though: A federal law now requires hospitals to…Read more...

Last week, the New York Times published an article by Grace Cook that got half of Twitter talking about “the cotton tote crisis.” At the center of this article—and the multiple tweets promoting it—is an alarming statistic: “An organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall impact of…Read more...

When everyone seems to be making more money than you, the inevitable question is “okay, what exactly do all these people do?” Fortunately, Reddit has the answer. A recent thread discussed what people do to earn six figures, and while some occupations are obvious—doctor, lawyer—there are niche occupations that pay…Read more...

A global pandemic might have delayed the onslaught of comic book films, but that’s a tide that could only be held back for so long. Between now and the end of next year, there are 15 major comic book-related releases coming to theaters. Due to the aforementioned global pandemic, the release dates are still a little…Read more...

If you’re looking to supercharge your WhatsApp experience with some unofficial features, you might be tempted to try a mod. These versions of the app can offer chat options and customizable UIs that WhatsApp proper can’t provide. No matter how good the deal seems, however, we strongly recommend you don’t use them.

Just like people, our pets can develop arthritis, which can have a significant impact on their quality of life if it’s not managed properly. Although some slowing down is inevitable as your pet ages, some of the signs that we normally associated with getting older are, in fact, due to arthritis. Also known as…Read more...

Love it or hate it, the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar is a unique piece of tech. While Apple is rumored to be phasing out the Touch Bar later this year, there are tons of MacBook Pros in the wild that still have this weird feature, and they will still be in service for years to come. So instead of just letting the thing…Read more...

I’ve never been able to find anything easily in macOS’ System Preferences. Even the most basic things, such as changing wallpaper-related settings, I find myself using the search bar inside the System Preferences window. Needless to say, I feel like I’m ever at the mercy of Apple’s search code to be able to find what…Read more...

Even as glossy mags and wellness influencers have adopted weed (primarily CBD) as their new superfood snake oil, the taboo that still surrounds people who partake is as potent as an artisan blunt.Read more...

You don’t always want to take a snap of your Mac’s screen immediately after you hit the screenshot shortcut key—sometimes you might want to give yourself a few seconds to set things up just right before capturing your screenshot. Fortunately, your Mac allows you to do that, and we’ll show you how.

Admittedly, we’ve gotten a little jaded. Digital effects are so omnipresent in our blockbusters that we’ve come to expect the impossible from movies. Our sense of awe has been, perhaps, a bit dulled, even as we’re very easily disappointed (although I don’t see the human-feline CGI monstrosities from Cats pleasing…Read more...

Most people buy and hold cryptocurrency in the hopes that it will one day replace fiat currencies and therefore become more valuable. However, increasingly, some are looking to spend it, too, with 40% of crypto holders planning to make a purchase in the next year, according to a recent survey.Read more...

With the notable exception of my fish spatula, nearly all of my favorite spoons and turners are made of wood. Wooden cooking implements are my favorite souvenir, and I collect one from every country I travel.

Fresh flowers—whether picked directly from your yard or garden, or coming via a professional bouquet or arrangement—have a relatively short shelf life. No matter how clean you keep the water, or how many of those little packets from the florist that you add to the vase, part of the novelty is knowing that they won’t…Read more...

There’s a difference between something being dirty and discolored—and plastic vent covers can be both. While many homes feature vent covers made of metal, plastic is also relatively common. And one of the downsides of white plastic vent covers is that they yellow over time, ending up discolored.Read more...

One of the perks of friendship is having someone to confide in, share your news with (both good and bad), and turn to for support. But sometimes, if may feel as though a friend thinks of you not only as their pal, but as their therapist as well—constantly turning to you to listen to their problems, and, in some cases,…Read more...

So, you had to cancel your summer vacation for the second year in a row because of the pandemic. For a while, this year was really looking good—what with the vaccine rollout and declining cases and all—but the Delta variant had other plans (ruining ours).Read more...

People tend to have strong opinions about snakes—usually either finding them fascinating (in some cases, enough so to keep one as a pet), or absolutely terrifying and repulsive to the point of getting (bad) chills just looking at a photo of one. But feelings aside, for some people with yards, snakes are very much a…Read more...

In the two weeks since the Taliban took hold of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, roughly 105,000 people have been evacuated, in one of the largest airlifts in U.S. history. While an estimated 5,100 evacuees are American citizens, the rest are Afghan individuals and families, many now facing housing insecurity.

There are plenty of ways to take beautiful screenshots on your Mac, but there’s a catch—the mouse cursor is missing in all of your screenshots by default, which may be a dealbreaker for some purposes. Sometimes you may not want to bother annotating screenshots, for example, so you could quickly show the mouse pointer…Read more...

Though I’ve been an Apple TV+ subscriber for going on a year—mostly because a free year came with my iPhone 12 Mini—I still don’t quite understand it. A streaming service with almost nothing on it except for the scant original content Apple has managed to produce doesn’t make sense to me, not in the era of a billion…Read more...

Like the Nintendo Switch and Sony’s PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles, the Xbox Series X|S and its older sibling the Xbox One are region-free devices. That means you can buy and play Xbox games released in other countries and play them on your console.

When you’re trying to wash, dry, and sort through pile after pile of your family’s laundry, an organized and functional workspace can make all the difference. And yet, when we think about the rooms we want to remodel or redecorate in our home, our minds first wander just about everywhere else—the kitchen, the bathroomsRead more...

Wednesday morning, I got in a rental car and drove from Montreal (where I live) to New York City, having recently decided to dip my toe in the waters of societal reintegration. It’s been 17 months since I left Montreal. That’s 75 weeks. That’s 527 days. That’s 45,499,949 seconds of not doing what I used to do with…Read more...

Your Mac makes it pretty easy to take screenshots, but soon enough you’ll end up with a desktop that’s overflowing with them. That’s because the default save location for Mac screenshots is the desktop. But if you’re like me, you like to keep your desktop clean, and to do that you have three choices: Stop taking…Read more...

When the season changes and your summer plants are gone, your soil begs for some sort of protection from the cold weather to come. Harsh winds, freezing temperatures, sleet, and snow can reek damage on the soil without most of us realizing it.Read more...

Even before the pandemic kept us locked in our homes for weeks at a time, the delivery and takeout business was booming thanks to apps that make it super easy to see restaurant offerings, select a few, and get them delivered in under an hour.Read more...

For those who have spent the past 18-or-so months working remotely, the transition out of the home and back into the workplace may be (or has already been) a challenge. It’s not necessarily a concern about working longer hours—if anything, it may cut down on the amount of time we spend working—but more about losing…Read more...

We’ve talked about the joys of getting out on the water, and explored the world of inflatable kayaks (a great option for kids or casual boating, but not for serious kayakers). Now it’s time to check out the watercraft that’s fast becoming the most popular at my local lake: the inflatable paddleboard.Read more...

Did you know National Lazy Mom’s Day was a thing? Likely not, because you’re a mom and far too busy with your 287 daily responsibilities to keep track of newly invented occasions. But since some of us barely get the pleasure of relaxing on Mother’s Day, when we’re often required to organize and attend group functions…Read more...

I wasn’t exactly surprised when, in the midst of a recent disagreement, my 11-year-old son expressed how upset he was by telling me that he believed I love his younger sister more than him. That’s a pretty common go-to move that most parents hear at some point, and I certainly remember breaking it out on at least a…Read more...

When we talk about cheating—and we do talk about, it a lot—we typically focus on the two people in the affected partnership. There’s the cheater and the cheated-upon, yes, but so often overlooked is the cheated-with, a person who may or may not know they’re the “other” in a crowded relationship.Read more...

You spend countless hours weeding, watering, pruning, and nurturing your garden into a space you enjoy; so it’s easy to forget that the rich vegetation we take so much joy and pride in is also meant for the local wildlife. Wildlife gardens can attract butterflies, birds, and small animals to your backyard oasis. And…Read more...

We recently talked about how you can hide your browsing history from ad trackers in Safari, which is great, but one reason many people have been hesitant to use Safari is simply because it looks a bit boring compared to other browsers. But Apple is trying to change that in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Now you’ll have a…Read more...

The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 are popular all over the world, but not every game is available in every country at the same time. There are plenty of games that never leave Japan, or that release in the UK or Europe before the U.S. (or vice-versa). Some countries, like Australia and Germany, have strict content…Read more...

This week the kids are debating whether COVID is a thing and falling off milk crates. I know Whitney Houston said, “the children are our future,” but I’m not so sure.

I am going elk hunting next week. This will be my first time doing any sort of hunting—and my first time camping since I was a child—and I did not realize it would involve so much planning (or spending so much money). I knew it would involve some planning, obviously, but the number of tiny details I have to remember (…Read more...

There are endless hacks about how to keep your white clothes clean without hard chemicals. Some suggestions include baking soda, vinegar, and even aspirin—which, fine, we’re hardly opposed to getting creative. One option, though, involves boiling your whites with lemons, and while citric acid really is a good way to…Read more...

Listen, we’re not here to judge or ask questions. You need to clear your recent browsing history—and fast. Lucky for you, we can help. Whether you use Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Brave, there’s a keyboard shortcut to help you delete your most recent web history as fast as possible, should you need to do so for reasons…Read more...