Lifehacker

As I wrap up Week Three of trying to learn to like running—a thing I have hated most of my life—for my monthlong “Lifehacker Fitness Challenge,” I have to report a few hiccups and one incredible, practically unbelievable success.

If you have an old credit card that you never use, you might be tempted to scrap it. After all, debt is bad right? Well, cancelling your card has some consequences related to your credit score, so you’ll want to consider all of your options first. Here’s what you need to know.Read more...

There’s an obvious appeal to off-the-shelf, “install this to fix everything!” software suites. Or, they sound great on paper, anyway: Dump an app (or a few apps) on your PC, and they’ll continually scan your system to make sure it’s free of viruses or malware. And depending on the suite, they’ll even work all kinds of…Read more...

It’s been interesting to watch COVID vaccine rumors evolve (mutate?) in the months since the vaccines were first introduced.

If you’re forced to deal with a narcissist for any prolonged period of time—whether you have the misfortune of being romantically involved with one, or you have one in your family—you’re going to need to develop some coping strategies, if only to lessen the emotional wreckage these toxic people inevitably leave in…Read more...

When it comes to a job offer, it’s easy to fixate on salary because, well...you need money to live. But you’ll want to carefully evaluate the benefits being offered, too, as they have a monetary value worth thousands of dollars that can make a lower-than-expected salary worth accepting. Here’s what you should look for…Read more...

Every year, as summer approaches, parents and teachers across the country begin worrying about the summer slide. The phenomenon, in which some students regress academically during the months off of school, is thought to most predominantly affect younger kids and children from low-income families. And it was already a…Read more...

If you haven’t already outfitted your backyard to welcome visitors after the CDC eased restrictions, now is the time to add the best yard feature: a fire pit. Most fire pits involve quite a bit of hard labor, including buying bricks or cement blocks, mixing up concrete, or digging out an area for the stones to sit.…Read more...

The latest WhatsApp beta on Android brings some major changes to the way the app’s chat archive system works. The “new archive,” as the app calls it, does the same thing as the “old” archive—house your archived messages—with one major exception: You can now permanently archive chats you want to ignore or remove from…Read more...

Entering virtual reality is fun, but it can also be productive: Lately, I’ve found it a fairly decent way to get in a quick workout. However, strapping on a VR headset does require me to untether from my phone and miss out on all the scintillating messages my friends are sending my way—or at least, it did. If you’re…Read more...

It is impossible to cook bacon with out stealing a strip, a lardon, or a bit during the process. I wouldn’t even call it stealing; as the person doing the cooking, it’s your right to enjoy a little bacon bonus, as a treat for your hard work. Trouble arises, however, if you eat a large (or even small) portion of the…Read more...

I’m not embarrassed to say that opening a bag of chips can be a vexing exercise. The bag’s seal might be stubbornly stuck together, or your hands might already be greasy for dipping your hands into a previous bag of salty goodness. But if you yank too hard, you face the dire risk of ripping the bag, causing most, if…Read more...

After years of historically low inflation rates, consumer prices rose 4.2% year over year in April—the largest increase since the financial crisis of 2008. While price inflation was expected, given the ongoing post-pandemic recovery, some products have seen much more dramatic hikes—we’re talking spikes of 15–30%—due…Read more...

Summer’s nearly here, and you know what that means: It’s time to bust out the box fans and wonder how on earth they got dirtier since you last saw them. Hair, dirt, lint, and all kinds of other gross airborne stuff build up on fans over time—and if you don’t clean it off, it all blows back in your face.

If the past year has you reevaluating how you parent, you’re hardly alone. What seemed to work in pre-pandemic times doesn’t necessarily translate to a time in which you are suddenly home with your children and partner every minute of every day for more than a year. But as we emerge, vaccinated, from the depths of…Read more...

I love fussing with wifi, but when I’m building the backbone of my network in a new location—a house, apartment, or wherever—I tend to go wired as much as I can. Wireless bridges and tri-band mesh/extender setups are great and convenient, but I always appreciate the stability and speed of an Ethernet cable.Read more...

Some perennial veggies provide natural fertilizer for themselves and nearby plant life. The same goes for herbs. Old and used tea bags provide nitrogen, tannic acid, and other components that help make a healthy growing environment.Read more...

Roasting vegetables give them a deeper, sweeter, more complex flavor, which is why I wish they made their way into more salads. After all, there’s no rule that says your salad veggies must me crisp and raw. Instead of a desiccated, shredded carrot, you could bless your salad with slightly caramelized carrot coins, or…Read more...

Spiders offer plenty of benefits in terms of pest control, but that doesn’t mean they’re always welcome guests in your home. Here are some easy ways to keep your home from becoming a spider’s paradise—without calling an exterminator.Read more...

Twitter’s verification process may soon change. The social media company announced plans to update its verification process last year, and recent evidence indicates the new process could go into effect as soon as next week.Read more...

With Memorial Day weekend coming up, Dairy Queen is giving away a “Sweetest Season Pass” that will allow 20 randomly selected ice cream fans to order free Blizzards all summer long. The chain announced the promotion last Thursday; here’s how you can try to snag one of the coveted prizes, each worth a few thousand…Read more...

When our parenting editor Meghan Walbert wrote a few weeks ago that she was determined to learn to like running, several of the comments on that piece (and its sequel) argued against the very idea of trying to like something you hate. I would like to propose an alternative viewpoint: that trying things you expect to…Read more...

Having plants means having to consider lighting, watering, fertilizing, and yes, even bugs. Plants can attract certain bugs, ones like spider mites, gnats, and whiteflies that can all infest your plants and your home if not taken care of. Here are a few natural and store-bought ways to rid your house plants of pesky…Read more...

I confess, even I got a little excited when I heard that Apple was upping the quality of many of its Apple Music tracks to lossless audio. While that’s not a you-can-listen-now change, as the 75+ million lossless tracks will start to debut on the service in June, it’s still something to get excited about. Right?…Read more...

The thought of alien life has long seemed like a fantasy, immortalized in pop culture and cast aside in the mainstream as a wacky conspiracy, but a certain Republican Senator from Florida wants you to know that the truth, uh, may be out there.

I almost always have a couple of bags of frozen shrimp in my freezer, but a couple of weekends ago I decided to grab some “fresh” ones from the seafood counter at the grocery store, hoping to shave off the 15 minutes it usually takes to defrost the little guys from my meal prep. I got home and made a shrimp cocktail,…Read more...

On any given day, there are more than 400,000 kids in the U.S. foster care system. Some of those kids are in the system for days or weeks, while others spend months or years bouncing from home to home to home—and every single one of them has experienced trauma.

Over the last few days, we’ve seen lots of reports across Reddit and social media that Apple Music on CarPlay has been crashing unexpectedly. While we don’t know the specific cause, and there’s no confirmed fix yet, there are a few workarounds you can try while you wait.Read more...

We all have the same problems with our trash can: The bag falls in, you can’t pull the bag out, it smells terrible, etc.Read more...

Netflix has been killing it will original animated features lately, from the Oscar-nominated Over the Moon to the zany apocalyptic surprises of The Mitchells vs. the Machines. In June, they’re trying again with the premiere of Wish Dragon, a new Chinese-American co-production that’s trying so hard to recreate the…Read more...

Hanging plants can make your place feel like a beautiful oasis, but when those plants’ colors begin to fade and their leaves dry out, it’s hard to save them, especially if you have no idea what is going on. Some hanging plants outgrow their pots, while others are victim to the common overwatering, and even the more…Read more...

Anyone can set out a bowl of olives as part of a charcuterie board or snack plate, but serving a dish of warm olives is a pro move. You can gently heat them in a luxurious pool of warm olive oil—or you can blast them with the hot, whipping winds of the air fryer. Both are good options, but the latter is my current…Read more...

It’s time for Android 12 Beta 1—your first chance to try out all the fun new changes to Google’s operating system with less of a chance of encountering a nasty bug, taking a performance hit, or running into other beta-bred problems on your primary carry device. At least, I’m much more willing to check out the beta…Read more...

We put a lot of labels on our kids somewhat reflexively, and they’re not all good. We see an undesirable behavior and we point it out in the same way these behaviors were often pointed out to us when we were kids: Don’t be so stubborn, we say. He’s such a picky eater, we moan. Oh yeah, she’s really shy, we excuse.…Read more...

If you’re a recent college graduate or preparing to start your first salaried position, you might never have seen a job offer letter before, and it’s important to know what these documents mean. The letter is an offer of employment, yes—but the terms presented within aren’t necessarily set in stone, and can often be…Read more...

I tuned in to Google I/O this year with privacy on the brain. Chalk it up to the recent drama of Facebook-exec-turned-Apple-employee-turned-unemployed-employee Antonio Garcia Martinez, who famously said in 2018:Read more...

The law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is hugely misunderstood. (For one thing, it’s spelled HIPAA and not HIPPA.) The latest people to misunderstand it are those who claim it’s illegal to ask them whether they’re vaccinated. Sorry, that’s not how the law works. That’s not…Read more...

Imagine you wake up to a smoldering piece of machinery in your yard, still smoking and sizzling after screaming towards Earth from space. This is an extremely unlikely scenario, but it remains true that space junk happens. Of all the scientific instruments we launch into the stratosphere, some of it, on occasion,…Read more...

Ho-hum, you think. Nothing big coming to Hulu in June. Love, Victor season two is out on the June 11; I should probably try to catch up with season one. Season two of Dave? I didn’t even know there was a season one. And then you spot it: A 2021 movie called Willy’s Wonderland. You google it and discover it stars…Read more...

The housing market isn’t overheated, it’s on fire. Both pent-up post-pandemic demand for homes and a supply shortage has pushed median sales price on existing single-family homes up 16.2% year over year during 2021's first quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. To navigate a seller’s market,…Read more...

It’s hard to argue that most of us have a little too much stuff lying around, but getting rid of your stuff can be difficult. Maybe you’ve formed a personal attachment to certain items or you truly believe you’ll have a practical use for it someday. Most of the time, though, “personal value” means “guilt” and…Read more...

First time growers are often told to buy plants like bamboo, cacti, or succulents. We’re told these are resilient plants that don’t need a lot of attention. And sure, while they are “hardy” as plants go, the notion that a succulent can survive anything you do to it is sadly mistaken.

It’d be nice if finding a therapist you’ll like were as easy as finding someone to paint your house. In both situations, you have to shop around, but interviewing your potential counselors is a lot tougher than just reading Yelp reviews—especially because there’s no guarantee a therapist’s methods will click for you…Read more...

How do you know if you’re doing too much in the gym, or not enough? We’ve talked about how to manage the intensity of your exercise, but what about the actual time you clock during a workout? The optimal length of an exercise session depends on your goals, and on what, exactly, you’re doing.Read more...

On one end of the parenting-style spectrum are the “helicopter parents” who hover in an ever-vigilant attempt to protect their children from basically everything. On the opposite end, we have the “free range parents” who let their kids roam—just like we all did in the good ol’ days, back when we only came home for the…Read more...

Loki, Luca. Luca, Loki. Disney Plus is doing its part to keep you indoors in June as it premieres the third TV series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the next feature film from Pixar.Read more...

It’s not the best week for a new feature that lets you turn your smart assistant display into a security camera, but one company’s misfortune is another company’s gain, I suppose. Regardless, a brand-new “Home Monitoring” setting lets you do just that with your camera-equipped Amazon Echo Show, offering a handy way to…Read more...

Considering the abundance of tax scams out there, it’s wise to be wary of unusual correspondence purporting to be from the IRS. However, if you recently received a jointly issued IRS-White House letter from Joe Biden confirming that you’ve been issued stimulus funds, it’s important to know that it’s not a scam, and…Read more...

Knowing the life cycle of your plants is vital to creating a healthy garden. Some plants grow all year round, like evergreens (hence the name) while others sprout only once a year, like geraniums. It can be hard to keep track of which plants come back every year (perennials) and which live only one cycle (annuals).…Read more...

If your old, beat-up collection of Barbies, Matchbox cars, or MEGA Bloks have overstayed their welcome, ditching them (without dumping them into a landfill) just got a lot easier.Read more...