Lifehacker

Attempting to pare down a book collection has a way of blinding us to our actual reading habits. Sure, that 600-page history book has made it through multiple moves without so much as a quick first-chapter skim—but how dare you suggest getting rid of it?Read more...

Tech innovations are coming so fast and furious these days, it can be hard to stay on top of it all (even when the PR firms promoting it all have your email address). You can try keeping up to date by staying glued to Twitter, but by the time something trends on social media, it’s usually already old news among…Read more...

This year and every year—but this year especially—there has been a lot of chatter about the ways in which the movie world has contracted, with big budget genre blockbusters (usually superhero movies) taking over local movie theaters almost entirely, pushing out nearly everything else. This isn’t good. Superhero…Read more...

If you want to breath new life into some old furniture or decor, a little paint can do the trick. These faux finishes will elevate a regular piece and add elegance to older furniture, and you can DIY them for less expense than you might think.Read more...

With only about two weeks left in 2021, it’s tempting to think ahead to what the new year may have in store for us—from fresh strains of COVID-19, to devastating natural disasters, to an ever more broken political system. But for now, let’s live in the moment, and try to get through the holidays, with some free food…Read more...

Are hackers really spying on people through their phone cameras and webcams? The short answer: Yes. Webcams and phone cameras can be hacked, giving bad actors complete control over how they function. As a result, hackers can use a device’s camera to both spy on individuals and search for personal information. Luckily,…Read more...

Many of us are antsy to travel abroad now that some entry restrictions are relaxed. However, COVID-19 is still very much here, and hopping on a plane and flying across an ocean are not without risks, even if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted.

For centuries, cannabis was deceptively low-tech—seed, meet dirt; dried plant, meet flame. But even in ancient times, people were always looking for more efficient ways to consume; nearly 2,500 years ago in Greece, Herodotus wrote of a vaping technique that involved placing hemp seeds on blazing hot stones.

Who among us doesn’t wake up with an achy neck sometimes, or find that our back doesn’t feel great after sitting or standing in the same position all day? While a concerning level of pain is a matter for a doctor or a physical therapist, a few stretches can go a long way in alleviating everyday stiffness.

If you have a healthy relationship with your in-laws and enjoy spending time with them, that’s amazing! (And where’d you get that—Amazon?) If the thought of your father-in-law loudly clearing his throat one more time sends a paroxysm of muted rage through your chest cavity, though, here are a few tips to help you deal…Read more...

When I was in college, I got into baking as a way to mitigate the stress brought on by taking classes I didn’t really enjoy with the goal of getting a job I didn’t really want. One Christmas, my dad gave me Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess, and my roommate wrapped up a copy of Ken Haedrich’s Pie. I don’t…Read more...

Though your knee-jerk reactions may suggest otherwise, there’s nothing incongruous about pairing Christmas with scary stories.

iOS 15.2 is filled with features big and small. Along with features like Digital Legacy and App Privacy Report, comes a feature we’ve been waiting years for; the ability to completely erase and reset a locked iPhone without needing to connect it to a Mac or PC first.Read more...

A little bit about myself: I like cocktails. I like making them. I like drinking them. I care about them very deeply. I predominantly exercise this affinity from the comfort of my own home, and over the course of the last several years have acquired a home bar I am quite comfortable in and enjoy a lot. Nightly, in…Read more...

Student loans are choking an entire generation of Americans. For decades, people were encouraged to prioritize higher education, and one of the most effective encouragements was the relatively easy process of getting a loan to pay tuition and living expenses while you earned your degree. I can remember applying for…Read more...

At long last, you can search for songs within a playlist in Apple Music. Until now, if you had long Apple Music playlists on your iPhone, you couldn’t use the search bar to find a specific song, making it difficult to quickly find the song you really wanted to listen to. It may be overdue, but Apple has finally added…Read more...

Rolling in to an office holiday party or other seasonal gathering with a cheeseball is a simple, cost-effective way to win friends and influence colleagues. Cheeseballs are fun to eat and easy to make, and there are plenty of recipes for them on this wide and vast informational web.Read more...

If you were planning on making your famous Christmas cheesecake this year, then the current cream cheese shortage has likely thrown a wrench in your rich, creamy plans. Now, Philadelphia Cream Cheese has a counteroffer.

While it might be a bit rich of Netflix to launch a new comedy series that appears to be a straight up parody of The Woman in the Window—a critical bomb the streamer paid big bucks for to acquire from Disney amid the pandemic, you may remember—come Jan. 28, Kristen Bell will become The Woman in the House Across the…Read more...

The sixth—and possibly final—payment from the Child Tax Credit program should be deposited in the bank accounts of eligible parents today, Dec. 15. Those who have their checks mailed can expect them to arrive over the next few days.

Apple’s macOS 12.1 is a fun update. It finally brings iOS’ and iPadOS’ SharePlay to macOS FaceTime—allowing you to share your screen and other media with your friends on video calls—in addition to Hide My Email and Apple Music Voice Plan, among other great features. However, if you’re rocking an M1 Mac, you might not…Read more...

The global pandemic has certainly made travel abroad more complicated, not least because of the additional paperwork demonstrating your vaccination and testing status that is required to leave and reenter the country. But the reality is that you’ve always needed certain essential documents for international…Read more...

Bed frames and headboards can be expensive, but a comfy, inviting bedroom is a must for even the simplest decor tastes. You can get the best of both worlds with a DIY faux headboard, whatever your decorating tastes and budget are.

Gardening may seem like a warm-weather activity, but for best results, it’s actually a year-round endeavor. Just because the ground is frozen and very little is blooming right now doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. Use this time—while you’re not overwhelmed with planting, watering, managing, and harvesting—to set…Read more...

Browsing on dating apps can be fun, but the chat box can also be intimidating. How much is too much small talk? What’s a good way to make your intentions clear without being too direct? How long do you have to keep up the digital banter before you can just go on a damn date?

Whenever you’re cooking or baking with eggs, good food safety practices are of the utmost importance. Sometimes, though, laziness wins: At one point or another, most of us have set a spent eggshell back in the carton rather than finding a more appropriate receptacle. Even if you’ve never sent anybody to the hospital…Read more...

Our digital lives are heavily intertwined with our “real” lives, and Apple is finally starting to acknowledge that. The data that lives in our iCloud accounts is not only important to us, but also to our family members. Now, there’s a way for our loved ones to access our digital data when we no longer can.

The annual tradition of picking out garish sweaters for a holiday party is past its cultural sell-by date, but maybe your friends or bosses haven’t received the memo. If you’ve been invited to an ugly sweater party this year, here are some thoughts on how to navigate it.

Spoilers ahead for And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City reboot on HBO Max, although this news has been hard to ignore whether or not you even watch the show.Read more...

The Apple Watch is an excellent health tool. It tracks your steps, keeps count of your expended calories, and helps you check in on your heart rate. While many of its excellent features work out of the box, one option is often turned off by default, and it’s the one option that could very well save someone’s life.

Fans of TV shows featuring house-hunting, flipping, flopping, or home improvement may have noticed a new term popping up in more recent episodes: “primary bedroom.” It’s also slowly becoming the norm in real estate descriptions, and even if the term is unfamiliar at first, context clues will tell you that “primary…Read more...

Apple pulled off a neat trick on the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max; it added a surprisingly good Macro mode to the Camera app, without even adding a separate Macro camera (like Android phones do). The Camera app automatically switches to a cropped version of the Ultra-Wide camera once you got closer to an object.…Read more...

Warm cocktails are tricky for me. I have an overactive internal furnace, and hot ethanol tends to waft in an aggressive manner. (I even chill my mulled port.) But, at lest once a holiday season, when I’m nice and high on nostalgia, I give into the warming promise of a toddy, a mulled something, or a boozy coffee, and…Read more...

Lifehacker is looking for a Senior Finance Writer, which means we’re looking for a particular kind of person: Our finance writers cover specialized topics, but those topics need to be explained in an approachable, down-to-earth way. In other words, you’re not writing for the Financial fucking Times, and you should be…Read more...

The idea that once something hits the internet, it’s there forever, isn’t true. Things disappear from the internet all the time, from once-thriving online communities being killed when their hosting company goes under, to publications that have their archives wiped, to personal sites that vanish when their owners stop…Read more...

To quote Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho, “...once you overcome the 1-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

If you’re looking for some help from a hardware store employee, the advice you get can vary depending on the knowledge and experience of the person helping you. Most of the time, salespeople at hardware stores will offer good-intentioned suggestions, but sometimes even advice made with the best of intentions can be…Read more...

Charcuterie boards are fantastic in a million ways, whether it’s taking one on a camping trip, assembling one for your kids’ lunch, hosting a party, a last-minute dinner when you’re too tired to cook, or even giving one as a Valentine’s Day gift. The classics are classics for a reason, and charcuterie boards are no…Read more...

If you want to check how fast (or slow) your internet is, the usual method is to go to speedtest.net, fast.com, or any of the bajillion other internet speed test sites. But if you have a Mac running macOS Monterey, you don’t need to visit any website to check your internet speed. There’s now a built-in tool in macOS,…Read more...

Of course you need a passport to cross international borders, but they’re more than a required travel document: They keep track of your globetrotting, and there’s nuance to both the design of your passport booklet and the access it provides. Here are 12 interesting facts you may not know about your passport.Read more...

One of the big shifts between our parents’ generation and ours is the increasing number of families who are choosing to raise their children without religious beliefs. In a 2019 survey that was conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, only 42% of families with children under the age of 18 report attending…Read more...

Got an Android device? If so, Google’s got a great selection of apps and games for you to check out. At the end of each year, both Apple and Google award the best apps and games on their respective app stores. (If you have an iPhone, you should check out our best-of Apple list.) And if you haven’t had the time to try…Read more...

On Christmas morning breakfast should be fairly hands-off and immensely forgivable, which is why I usually favor a combination of out-of-a-tube cinnamon rolls and bacon or a bag of sausage biscuits from McDonald’s. I realize, however, that some red-blooded Americans need eggs to get their day going, even if that day…Read more...

The 2020 holiday season was no picnic, but it looks like 2021 will have its own challenges. Although vaccines are available for the vast majority of Americans who want them, we are still very much in the middle of a global pandemic, battling the latest new, concerning variant. Although things don’t quite look like we…Read more...

If a straight-up snitch like the Elf on the Shelf can become a holiday mainstay, literally anything can—and many stranger things have. I’m here to argue that the following activities, ideas, and traditions that were once annual winter traditions somewhere, can be again if we all believe hard enough. And believe, I do.

Socks may come into this world as a pair, but they almost always leave this world alone. Luckily, you don’t necessarily need to toss out socks that are missing their perfect match, or stretched-out, or threadbare, or hole-y. From cleaning your home to craft supplies for your kids, there are plenty of ingenious ways to…Read more...

I know I’m not the only one who learned to count “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” as a kid. The idea, of course, is that when you insert those words between your numbers, the pace of your counting will roughly match the seconds on a clock. But Mississippi can’t be universal around the world, can it? A redditor asked…Read more...

If you’ve got one, it’s probably your most expensive piece of jewelry: That gleaming stone that says “I do” (or “I did”), that shimmering token of commitment you rarely take off, that bijou that cost some major coin—your engagement ring. Considering the average couple spent close to $4,000 on engagement rings in 2020…Read more...

When it comes to candy making, I tend to favor confections that can be made without a candy thermometer, and ideally in the microwave. Haystacks, cheater’s fudge, lazy caramels, and gin balls are a few of my favorites treats to make, eat, and give, but this year I’m adding peanut brittle to my repertoire (and to my…Read more...

Whether you’re heading back to your hometown like a Hallmark movie or just feeling lonely in general, the holidays are a prime time for that creeping feeling that you ought to text your ex and see what they’re up to. It’s easy enough to get lost in nostalgia about good holiday seasons past and wish you had that old…Read more...