Lifehacker

Google Photos does a great job sorting through your photos using a text search, thanks to the tech giant’s prowess with image recognition, machine learning, and, er, search. Apple’s Photos app isn’t nearly as useful—but you can do a few things to fix that.

With temperatures dropping outside, our pipes are at an increased risk of freezing—especially in areas where freezing temperatures are unusual. Identifying and troubleshooting high-risk spots now can save you the hassle of a frozen pipe and—worse—the expense of fixing a burst one.Read more...

The iPhone keeps you connected to the world, but there is another, more straightforward it can help you make sense of what’s going on around you: You can use its Magnifier feature like an actual magnifying glass.

If you make your own mayo, you know you can go all out by playing around with vinegars and various fats. Duck fat mayo, for instance, will change your sandwich game. Even something as simple as swapping egg yolks for whole eggs can change the flavor and texture of your spread. But while I love tweaking and tinkering…Read more...

While some people have always loved vintage (i.e. secondhand) furniture, others are new to the thrift store, flea market, and yard sale game, thanks to current furniture shortages and shipping delays. But shortages or not, there are many benefits to buying secondhand furniture and other items for your home, including…Read more...

Not only can cold, dry winter air be problematic for your skin, it can cause some unwanted changes to your hair and scalp as well. This means that we may have to shift our haircare routines in order to protect it more throughout the season. And part of that is avoiding certain treatments and styling techniques that…Read more...

Each year, carbon monoxide poisoning brings more than 20,000 Americans to the emergency room—around 4,000 of whom are hospitalized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. Additionally, more than 400 Americans die from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning (not linked to fires).Read more...

Owning a home has long been one of the pillars of the “American Dream.” And even with increasing numbers of people choosing to rent a home rather than buying one, there are still plenty of folks out there who’d rather make payments on a mortgage, instead of to a landlord.Read more...

Cleaning your bathroom may not be your favorite household chore, but at least it’s pretty straightforward. In fact, you probably have some sort of routine down pat: Putting cleaner in the toilet to work its magic while you clear off the floor and counters, giving everything a quick-but-thorough wipe-down, running the…Read more...

Out of all the foods that are off-limits to dogs, chocolate is probably the one people are most familiar with—even if they don’t have a dog of their own. And it’s for good reason: Chocolate is toxic for dogs, and could make them seriously ill.Read more...

Steven Soderbergh is even worse at retiring than Hayao Miyazaki. Despite his stated intent to stop making films and try his hand at painting way back in 2013 (when he said “movies don’t matter anymore”) he’s about to drop his third film in two years (after Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move), direct to HBO Max.Read more...

Since we all know cloth masks don’t cut it anymore, hopefully you’ve gotten some of the good kind—N95, KF94, or similar. But even the best mask isn’t protecting you if it doesn’t fit right, or if you’re wearing it wrong. So here are some tips on getting the best protection from those high quality masks.

I don’t think I really know what the term “Champagne Year” means. I faintly recall someone telling me sometime, but the definition felt unremarkable and unfitting for such a forceful duo of words—CHAMPAGNE YEAR—so my brain must have immediately rejected it. When I think “Champagne Year,” I think of a train of silk…Read more...

Most years, at least a couple of my friends participate in Dry January. The last few years have not been like most years. I don’t know a single person (who wasn’t already sober) who is abstaining from alcohol completely this month, but I do know a few who are trying to drink less, or at least drink more thoughtfully.

NASA—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,—would like to send astronauts to Mars, and it needs your help to do so. Especially if you have a novel solution to the problem of recycling waste in space.

Weed-infused drinks are a staple of the edibles market. But thanks to new innovations in weed tech, THC drinks are looking to move beyond traditional cannabis circles, and replace your booze, seltzer, or hard iced tea with a cannabinoid-infused version.Read more...

Apple is good at what they do. They make products that are easy to set up and use, but, before you know it, you feel entirely trapped in their ecosystem. Now, for many of us, that’s not so bad; the ecosystem has a lot of perks, and life seems pretty good here. But for those of us looking for another tech opportunity,…Read more...

Whether they’re called pacifiers, binkies, dodies, or pacis in your household, their purpose is to soothe babies. But there’s nothing soothing about a pacifier that poses a potential danger to your baby. For this reason, Mushie & Co—a company that manufactures and sells a wide variety of products for babies and small…Read more...

Returning to exercise after any physical setback is tough. You trust yourself to listen to your body, but it’s also tempting to get back out there before you’ve fully recovered. However, jumping back into your fitness routine too soon can cause more harm than good—and this is especially true if you’re dealing with the …Read more...

If you have a grill that runs on propane, there will come a time when you need to deal with the empty tank. Depending on how old the tank is, there are a number of options available to you, from refilling or recycling to disposing of it entirely.Read more...

For many years, I had a Keurig. I loved my Keurig and its compact pods with their promise of just enough coffee to make the perfect cup without ever needing to measure. But every time I casually tossed one of those plastic pods in the trash can: guilt. They’re neither recyclable nor biodegradable, and tossing the…Read more...

The iPhone’s Voice Memos app is easy to use to record anything from a college lecture to a podcast—but not all recordings turn out to have the quality you’d like. You might end up with wind noise in the background, or a speaker’s voice that is barely audible. With patience (and some audio editing skills), you might…Read more...

This week, all the kids are breathlessly following corporate acquisition news and making one another sign non-disclosure agreements. It’s all very adult.

Some governments in other parts of the world have been providing free tests and masks for a while. The U. S. just got on board with the trend last week, promising to send four rapid tests to each household (you just need to request them at covidtests.gov). Now, we’re getting free N95 masks—but only three per adult.

Most needs are actually deep wants. I don’t need Maldon salt, but my scrambled eggs aren’t the same without the crunchy flakes. I don’t need to remove every germ from every garlic clove, but doing so can reduce bitterness. I don’t need an inflatable hot tub, but I bought one anyway. Do I need to devein every shrimp I…Read more...

If you were to ask someone at Nintendo about the Wii U, they’d likely say “Wii U? What Wii U? We make the Switch; that’ll be $350.” If it were up to the company, the world would entirely forget about this flop of a console. After all, the Switch prints money, and the Wii U was a dud, right? Commercially, sure. But in…Read more...

Facebook has introduced a new Privacy Center that gives users more control over how the platform collects and uses their data. Meta’s former namesake has long been the subject of complaints and concerns about its privacy and data policies. Now, users have a little more say over what data Facebook has access to.

There is something quite homey and family-oriented about the site of a whole roasted chicken. It makes a warm and welcoming centerpiece, can feed multiple people, and tells the guests at your table “I can cook” in no uncertain terms. If you eat meat, it’s a good staple to have in your arsenal of homemade meals.

We recently covered how cold is too cold to take your dog outside for a walk. But what is the best indoor temperature for our furry friends? The short answer is: Generally what is comfortable for us will be comfortable for them (unless you’re one of those people who sleeps with the windows open during a New Jersey…Read more...

Even the simplest visit to the doctor has a lot of moving parts: You have to make the appointment, wait for the appointment, and answer the same questions three times in a row because it seems like nobody actually reads your chart. Fortunately, the subreddit r/medicine has tips for navigating this whole situation.

The thought of someone breaking into your house and stealing your stuff is terrifying, and a lot of the “conventional wisdom” about how prevent it seems to prey on that fear. It’s not necessarily wrong advice, but it often seems based on our fear instead of reality, and often proposes a lot of (usually expensive)…Read more...

When you’re a kid, blackouts are exciting—they instantly transform your boring old house into a dark world of infinite adventure. When you’re an adult, blackouts are anxiety nightmares, forcing you to consider how long your food will stay fresh and ask yourself why you let your phone battery drop to 23 percent before…Read more...

When you feel a sneeze coming, you build up all this anticipation: you stop talking, the crook of your elbow is raised and at the ready, you have a tissue on hand, and then...nothing. The sneeze is stuck up there.Read more...

Traditionally, the honeymoon has been reserved for newlyweds as a time to celebrate, decompress, and, well, get it on. That’s at least partially because, once upon a time, many couples didn’t live together or have sex until marriage. Needless to say, times have changed—as relationship coach and counselor Jonathan…Read more...

Joel Coen’s expressionistic new take on The Tragedy of Macbeth has been (at least) a modest hit, and certainly a buzzy critical success. It’s very hard to quantify success for a movie with a dual streaming and theatrical release strategy during a Covid uptick, but it seems that few people have complaints about its…Read more...

Some built-in iPhone apps do such a good job there’s no need to look for third-party alternatives. While you might not give it much attention, Voice Memos is one of those apps, and it gets even better every few years. If you’re looking for a voice recorder that backs up your content and syncs between your devices,…Read more...

The 1990s encompassed my teen years, so of course I know all about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee and the 1995 leak of their infamous sex tape. A viral sensation in those heady, early days of the internet, for a time it gained a level of fame that eclipsed that of its featured players, a Playboy model and Baywatch…Read more...

I am typically not good at caring for house plants. I currently have three indoor plants, all of which are “alive,” but they are not exactly thriving. Perhaps it’s the low light levels in the Pacific Northwest (I hear there are lamps for this), or my sporadic watering schedule. Or perhaps my plants are not getting the…Read more...

This week, the Better Business Bureau issued a warning about the proliferation of COVID testing scams. According to the BBB, fake websites and janky in-person testing centers are using COVID testing as an excuse to steal people’s personal and insurance information and/or make a few bucks. Here are some tips to avoid…Read more...

OLED screens are known for two things. First is their excellent image quality and high contrast levels, which you can now experience on all manner of OLED-equipped TVs, PC monitors, smartphones, tablets, and handheld gaming consoles. The second is “OLED burn-in.”Read more...

Trimming audio on an iPhone is surprisingly hard—but doing so on a Mac is surprisingly easy. While there’s a dedicated audio trimming tool in the QuickTime app, the iPhone and iPad have no such option. Sure, there’s the built-in Voice Memos app, but it doesn’t support editing external audio files. Even so, you can…Read more...

As someone who has done little more than wash with Target-brand face cleanser and use $4 Suave lotion on my face for the better part of four decades, when it comes to skincare, I’m a newbie. Through a mix of cluelessness, willful ignorance, and a little luck, I didn’t need to understand proper skincare or devote…Read more...

For all the rise of streaming has done to kill movie theaters and disrupt the entertainment world, I have to admit that I continue to be impressed by the weird stuff Netflix and its ilk spend their billions on. As audiences segment themselves ever further, content grows ever more niche, to the point that one of the…Read more...

Despite some recent negative press about AirTags revolutionizing the stalking industry, Apple has developed a good reputation compared to other big tech companies when it comes to privacy and security. Knowing this, you might be surprised to learn that Apple’s own web browser, Safari, isn’t safe to use right now on any…Read more...

After finishing a hard workout, one of your first priorities is probably to refuel your body. If you are pressed for the time, the impulse may be to reach for a bar or shake, but as convenient as they can be, they are often highly processed—and they can get pretty boring after awhile.Read more...

Photos and screenshots take up a lot of space on hard drives and cloud storage—in their unedited form, 5-6MB for an image file isn’t uncommon. If you’re trying to save space or just need to send smaller image files, you’ll want to compress them first. There are multiple ways to do shrink image files, and some will get…Read more...

Two days ago, Disney dropped the trailer for Moon Knight, the next in a line of streaming series set on the ever-expanding fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starring Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, the show looks intriguing, suggesting a darker edge than much of the post-Netflix era of MCU TV. Unfortunately, it…Read more...

For something that’s such a big part of our lives, we rarely think twice about how we spend time with technology. We’ll work towards building good real-world habits, but what about the hours we waste doomscrolling in bed?

Styrofoam remains a ubiquitous material for takeout containers, disposable coffee cups, and protective cushioning for fragile items during shipping. The material—called expanded polystyrene or EPS—keeps your food and beverages hot and your packages safe, but unfortunately, it’s pretty bad for the environment. It takes…Read more...