Lifehacker

Perhaps the last thing you think of when it comes to a full moon is a very large fish, but August’s full moon is primed to change that. This month’s full moon is alternatively known as the Sturgeon Moon, which should evoke images of large, aquatic vertebrates enjoying life beneath the surface of a gleaming body of…Read more...

We all hopped on the group video game train early in our transition to remote-work life—and while Jackbox parties are a pretty poor replacement for “socializing” with our coworkers (and family and friends), they’re at least a little better than hours of endless Zoom meetings focused strictly on work.

Usually, it’s not easy to install spyware on smartphones and tablets, and especially on the iPhone or iPad. But Pegasus spyware is an exception. In July 2021, researchers found that Pegasus had infected the smartphones of some journalists, activists, and politicians.

When you’re wearing a mask outdoors, it becomes almost impossible to unlock your iPhone with Face ID. Technically, Face ID is doing its job—if you’re wearing a mask, you’re hiding your face and that’s why your iPhone can’t be unlocked. But it’s still annoying to enter your passcode every time like you did in 2012. To…Read more...

Microsoft is testing a “Super Duper Secure Mode” (or SDSM) for the Edge browser that targets the bane of all browser security: Javascript. Specifically, enabling SDSM mode disables the Javascript Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers, which websites use to optimize Javascript code running on the page.

If you’re an Apple devotee, there’s a good chance the company’s Messages and FaceTime services are two of the key features that keep you locked into the Cupertino ecosystem. But now, Apple has opened the floodgates just a crack, allowing us to invite anyone to a FaceTime call—even those on Android and Windows.

With more and more cities and business considering demanding proof of COVID vaccination before allowing you to do fun pre-pandemic things like see a movie or eat at an indoor restaurant, you have probably already thought about what you would do if you lost your vaccination card. However, what about the records of all…Read more...

The first year of college is a lot of adulthood all at once, so it’s easy to make mistakes right out of the gate—especially when it comes to money. Tens of thousands of dollars in credit can be easily wasted, credit scores can be ruined, and the debt accrued can stick around for decades. With that in mind, here are…Read more...

There are plenty of plant care techniques that help growers yield greater gains, like wiring and “screen of green” netting that help plants grow higher and reach more sun. And of course there’s pruning, which involves cutting a plant to size to promote new, fuller growth. But a similar process is called “deadheading,”…Read more...

I used to use “ego lifting” as an insult. Some dude is loading all the plates onto a bar, and deadlifting with a rounded back? Curling and putting his hips into it? He’s obviously doing it wrong, making me the superior one, even if I can’t get even half his deadlift off the ground.

Have you heard the news? Earth is fucked. And unless you’re a reckless billionaire, chances are good you will never go to space. Only a handful of humans have ventured outside Earth’s atmosphere and lived to tell about it, and none of those lucky and extremely well-prepared souls (around 574 of them) has ever come…Read more...

As a lover of the brined and the heavily salted, I appreciate the many gifts the caper bush bestows upon us. From it, we receive not only capers, but caperberries—two things that sound like they might be the same thing, but are in fact quite different.Read more...

If your Google Drive is constantly, inexplicably overflowing, you maybe be among those users may be losing out on their storage space due to a glut of hidden, “orphaned” files. Files become orphaned when their parent directory is deleted but the file itself is not. For example, if you upload a document to a folder in…Read more...

Cold pressed juices have a healthier reputation than just throwing a few fruits and veggies in a blender. They’re expensive, they need to be eaten fresh, and juice sellers and devotees sing the praises of their supposed health benefits. But how different is a juice from a smoothie, really?Read more...

It sucks when you end up losing your iPhone. Maybe you forgot it at the cafe, or it was stolen from the train station. Fortunately, it can be easy to track your iPhone (as long as it’s juiced up, and active). And if you already have a passcode enabled, the Find My iPhone feature is enabled automatically. Here’s how to…Read more...

Recovering from trauma is hard no matter when it happens. However, if adversity happens during childhood, it can be especially hard to overcome. Unlike adults, children have very little control over their environment. If a child is living in an abusive home, their ability to remove themselves from that environment is…Read more...

My family is big on deviled eggs, so much so that we have multiple vintage divoted platters for serving them. The divots keep the eggs in place during transport, preventing them from sliding around the platter or onto the floor. I love mine, but I recognize that not everyone has the space for a devoted deviled egg…Read more...

Many men are haunted by the societal expectations of being male. It’s the reason many guys refuse therapy, letting their emotional struggles bubble beneath the surface until they inevitably boil over, sometimes in the form of abusive behavior. The idea that men must be exemplars of bravery, strength, resolve, and must…Read more...

As summer winds down, newer gardeners might expect their garden will soon wither away—but the change in season doesn’t necessarily mean your gardening is coming to an end for the year. There are seasonal vegetables and plants that can continue throughout the fall. Here’s how to plant a fall garden, along with the best…Read more...

Unlike some other messaging services, WhatsApp only lets you register one phone number per account. That means when you log into your WhatsApp account on another phone using that number, it logs you out of the app on your existing device. So if you open WhatsApp on your usual phone to find yourself logged out—even…Read more...

While you’re busy checking out the best time-saving features on iPhone, don’t leave your Android phone behind. After all, productivity features have been around on Android for a lot longer and over time, it’s only added more features that make common tasks much faster. If you use an Android, here are 10 awesome…Read more...

Let’s start by stating the obvious: there are many, many ways to brew your morning (or afternoon, or evening) coffee. Maybe you’re already completely content with the convenience of your automatic coffeemaker, or perhaps the only piece of equipment you own is a French press. But if you’re still not settled on your…Read more...

The iPad is one of—if not the—best tablets on the market, but it’s also expensive. While the base model iPad is more budget-friendly, it’s a steep climb as you enter the iPad Air ($599) and iPad Pro ($799) territory. Not to mention that the 12.9-inch iPad Pro costs $1099.

There was a time long past when cellphone cameras were hot garbage. These days, however, smartphones shoot incredible video. Hollywood has even made a feature film or two on these things. But if you want to take full advantage of that great video quality on your iPhone or Android, you’ll need to make sure its actually…Read more...

You don’t need a contract with a reality TV show to broadcast everything you do to an audience anymore. All you need is a streaming platform, and most people—especially those who enjoy playing video games or watching other people play them—use Twitch.

Some things (many things) are just more beautiful in real life than they are on social media. Fireworks and your new boyfriend might initially come to mind, but today, we’re talking about sunsets. No photo of a sunset ever seems to reflect how stunning the sight actually was, but that’s never stopped any of us from…Read more...

By the time August rolls around, it may seem like you’re able to switch to gardening autopilot, doing all the necessary watering, weeding, and picking without much thought. But really, there’s plenty you can (and probably should) do this month to make sure your garden is able to coast through the end of the summer and…Read more...

Movie posters: They don’t make ’em like they used to. Sure, smaller independent films can get away with something interesting (usually with a yellow background), but posters for major blockbusters tend to be pretty formulaic. The first few decades of cinema were, however, a different story.Read more...

Along with strawberries, watermelon, and peaches, blueberries are one of the signature fruit flavors of the summer. And if you find yourself going through container after container of them each year, you may have wondered about the possibility of growing your own. (That is, if you don’t currently live on a farm or…Read more...

The heat and humidity of August doesn’t only make the outdoors unpleasant—it can make the insides of our homes sticky and uncomfortable, too. If you deal with dampness either year-round or seasonally, you may use a dehumidifier to help control the indoor climate. That’s a smart move, but it’s also important to keep…Read more...

Are people constantly telling you how funny you are? Do you always have the perfect joke in any situation, but no one to tell it to? Have you always thought maybe you should try stand-up? Well, you also probably know that stand-up comedy is a notoriously hard business to break into—but it can be done. Here are a few…Read more...

While it’s common to incorporate rocks into landscape designs, most of the time it’s in the form of a border around plants or a tree, or creating a path through a yard or garden. But there’s another possibility: You could plan and create a full-on rock garden.Read more...

Traditional wisdom suggests it’s usually a good move to invest in real estate—but how do you that if you don’t have much money? After all, not everyone has huge stacks of cash lying around, waiting to be spent on an investment property. Fortunately, there are a few ways you can realize some upside from the hot housing…Read more...

The scenes outside the Camp Nou soccer stadium in Barcelona say it all: A grown man crying into the jersey of Lionel Messi, because the once-in-a-generation superstar is leaving the club this summer after nearly 20 years due to an impasse with his contract renewal.Read more...

Basic tasks can sometimes feel like a chore on your iPhone because it takes a lot of time for something trivial. For example, the Camera app keeps opening to the default photo mode, and you have to keep sliding over to other modes such as portrait or video. Fortunately, it’s possible to save a lot of time by speeding…Read more...

When you wake up from a nightmare you might be a little panicked, but when you wake up from a dirty dream about someone you know in real life, you might be a lot panicked. The prospect of going to work, school, or a social function and seeing them—knowing how “they” are in bed—can feel like an awkward waking nightmare…Read more...

Going into business with a family member might seem like a great idea on the surface. After all, blood is thicker than water, and all that. But no matter how great your familial relationship is right now, you’re much more likely to fight with a family member than a traditional business partner—and the ripple effects…Read more...

If you’re fortunate enough to live somewhere with a nice lawn, landscaping, or garden, you likely have your own approach to maintaining them—and for some, that includes using pesticides. And if you and your neighbors don’t agree on spraying, it could cause some tension. But given that a pro-pesticide person is…Read more...

Congratulations. You’ve graduated to the phase of drinking where you can say with confidence that the Negroni is one of your favorite cocktails. The road to full appreciation of this most perfect drink was not always a straightforward one, but once you got hooked on the bitter ambrosia you couldn’t get enough! You…Read more...

“It’s my money, and I need it now!” You said it, JG Wentworth. The cash back you rack up when making purchases on your Apple Card is yours to do with as you like—but if you want to send it to your bank account, it’ll take one to three business days to get there. That’s far from ideal. If you need your money now,…Read more...

Cancel culture is such an important issue in my life, and this week’s cancel culture victims include DaBaby, Reddit’s worst anti-feminists, and golf-playing drunken airplane passengers.

What kind of coffee maker do you prefer? Keurig? Chemex? Drip maker? Aeropress? Nespresso? French press? Perhaps you prefer a cold brewer? As many types of coffee makers as there are, there are also ways to clean them. To get the most flavor (and least amount of old coffee residue) in each cup of joe, follow the…Read more...

Congrats on that super-cute baby you have there! Your little bundle of joy is so precious that it’s practically criminal to deprive your online followers of a constant stream of pictures. But by now, you’ve probably figured out that photographing a baby is harder than it sounds—no matter how adorable they are in real…Read more...

Shoe sizes vary so much between brands that buying a new pair can feel like a crapshoot. Obviously, the best way to get a good fit is to just try them on, but that’s not always possible. If you have no choice but to order online, you should know how big your feet actually are in centimeters.Read more...

There are three different personalities that encompass the broader traits of those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). While you might expect someone with a disarming smile and an infectious energy to be the type of narcissist who crosses your path, it’s possible for someone with NPD to seem more like a…Read more...

In the past year, many parents had the unexpected experience of their adult children moving back in with them due to various pandemic-related issues, such as their university shifting to online classes, job loss, or financial strain. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 52% of young adults between the ages…Read more...

Parental guilt is hard to shake off, no matter what decisions you make as a parent. Before you spend too much time over-analyzing your best courses of action though, it’s important to take a step back and think about what those actions may or may not be teaching your child about ambition. For example, mothers who…Read more...

Gyms have a terrible reputation for not actually canceling your gym membership, so what do you do when they ignore your cancelation emails and keep charging your card long after you canceled? Here are some tips to ensure that you don’t get bilked by an unscrupulous gym.Read more...

I set out to learn whether virtual reality games can give you a good workout, and last week you heard about a bunch of my favorites. Now that I’ve adventured through the virtual world, I have returned to you with opinions.

In the last few years, VPNs have gone from a niche data security tool to an everyday product you’ll see advertised on any vaguely tech-adjacent YouTube channel or podcast. But while there are many viable VPNs available commercially, their feature sets differ, and some are better suited for certain online activities…Read more...