Lifehacker

When summer heat and humidity hits for real, cold showers and box fans can only do so much. At some point you’ll need to actually cool the air in your house if you want to stay comfortable. Without central air conditioning, that can be a real struggle.Read more...

It’s a good time to get a retail job, as big chains are struggling to fill job vacancies, and are in some cases increasing hourly wages or offering hiring bonuses. If you’re shopping around for a gig, it’s also worth considering which chains offer the best employee discounts, as they can potentially add up to hundreds…Read more...

The word “crybaby” evokes a certain image: a child who seems to tear up over things of little consequence, multiple times a day, and for several minutes per cry session—and who seems too old to do so. There is a societal expectation that by a certain age, maybe around the time they start kindergarten or first grade,…Read more...

As humans, most of us are uncomfortable talking (or even thinking) about death, whether it’s our own, or the loss of loved ones—including pets. And while people never want to think about anything happening to their pets, that’s one of the inevitable aspects of having a furry companion. Even though you might think you…Read more...

The last movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic turned moviegoing into a hazy memory was Cats, the infamously wrong-headed adaptation of the inexplicably popular Broadway musical. That it was a late-night “rowdy” screening hosted by a popular bad movie podcast only made me feel a little less unclean.

Mushrooms and moisture have a tense relationship. Mushrooms seem to love moisture and grab onto it every chance they get, but the relationship is a toxic one, as moisture hastens the shrooms’ slimy demise. That makes it your job, as the mushroom storer, to keep them as dry as possible (until you’re ready to eat them).Read more...

Duct tape works miracles, but it often leaves behind a sticky reminder of its adhesive, regardless of where you’re using it. Most people try and fail to remove the remnants of duct tape, which can create an eyesore when its mostly removed—especially if you attempt to scrape a surface clean with some kind of tool.

Life is full of big decisions, and they tend to inspire a lot of thought around this time of year as graduates accept their diplomas and plan for the road ahead. With that in mind, here’s some advice to help you along the way, from deciding where to live to deciding where to work, and so on. Of course, none of these…Read more...

Few leftovers are as welcome as pizza—which is why it’s never a bad idea to practice smart pizza math and order a size up. And while I’d never fault you for eating a spare slice cold, straight from the fridge (possibly while standing in the dark in your underwear at 2:30 a.m.), I implore you to stop microwaving them…Read more...

Too often, runners try to improve by focusing exclusively on their running. They attempt faster workouts, higher mileage, speedier overall paces, or more frequent workouts. This approach may lead to injuries, as more training is inherently risky. (We don’t call them “overuse injuries” for nothing!) Instead, if runners…Read more...

When you’re looking for a new job there’s a lot that can go wrong, from formatting your resume improperly to being tripped up by questions during the job interview. Mistakes will happen—some bigger than others—and most of them are survivable...but there are certain pitfalls to avoid that can make your job search run a…Read more...

When you’re in elementary school, having friends from a different grade can be an indicator of your social status. Hanging around with kids in the grade below yours might be seen as a negative, but if you manage to get in with the older kids, you must be doing something right. Interesting, considering that either way,…Read more...

When I wrote last week about considering whether it’s time to change our parenting styles as we emerge from the pandemic, one reader reached out to ask me if I’d ever heard of gentle parenting. I did not think I had, but it sure sounded nice, so I decided to dive into the topic. I discovered that this is the type of…Read more...

With the boom of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) retail financing, the preference for no-interest installment plans has prompted popular payment apps like PayPal to launch their own versions. If you’re a regular user of PayPal who’s new to this form of payment, here’s a look at how it works and how to set it up.Read more...

Growing up, catfish was one of my favorite foods—one of the only fishes I enjoyed eating, in fact. As I got older, and lived and traveled outside of the South, I begin exploring (and appreciating) other types of finned food, but it took a while for me to appreciate salmon. It tasted so radically different from…Read more...

The first time (or maybe every time) you’ve purchased towels, perhaps you based your selection on 1) what’s cheapest and 2) is it a towel. But as it turns out, if you’re in a position where you have some flexibility in your towel budget (keeping in mind that they are an investment), you may be interested in learning…Read more...

Look: we know that we’ve heard a lot from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over the past year. What were they supposed to do? We’ve been living during a global pandemic caused by a virus never-before-seen in humans, and we all had/have a lot to learn.Read more...

Whether you’re addressing a group of people at work, or having a one-on-one conversation with a friend, you have the challenge of competing for their attention with their phone (and everything on it). And beyond that, there’s the question of whether they’ll actually retain anything you’ve told them.Read more...

As anyone who has led a team knows, being an effective manager involves more than making sure work gets done and goals are met. But for perfectionists, those aspects of the job can be especially challenging—because the only way to guarantee that everything is up to their standards is to do it (or at least carefully…Read more...

If, like so many others, you first got into gardening during the pandemic, you’ve probably already figured out that it involves more than planting a few seeds or baby plants and letting nature work its magic. Sure, you may be aware that using fertilizer can help your plants grow, for example, but you may not be…Read more...

Remember back in the day (i.e. 2019) when we took the simple act of leaving our home for non-essential purposes for granted? After more than a year of limiting our time in public to outings related to work, emergencies or getting basic supplies, going out to do something because you’d actually enjoy it sounds almost…Read more...

According to a report by Check Point Research, many popular Android apps put your personal data at risk due to poorly secured third-party services.

The majority prefer the familiarity and comfort of monogamy, but sexual adventurists of all stripes walk among us. Just think, while you’re haggling with your partner over the electric bill or Venmo’ing the same $30 back and forth to pay for weekly groceries, there are couples out there swinging from partner to…Read more...

For any high school or college student who is about to graduate, it’s safe to assume they had an interesting senior year. They spent so many of their classes, extra curricular activities, and traditional milestones either virtual or masked up and spread apart. This is not the year to gift them a coffee mug with…Read more...

If you’re fully vaccinated, you may be looking forward to using your masks less and less often now that the CDC has said fully vaccinated Americans can go without masks in many situations. But if you have allergies to dust or pollen, it might be worth keeping them around.Read more...

For whatever reason, the words “bartender’s handshake” make my skin crawl. I’m not against the concept—I actually love the idea of hospitality folks greeting each other with neat little shots and streamlined cocktails. I just hate the phrase.Read more...

Vaccination rates have stalled, and some states are doing whatever it takes to get more shots into arms, even if that means paying them off with freebies like free passes to parks, gift cards, or the tantalizing prospect of winning $1 million. And so far, the campaigns are having an effect. Here’s a look at what’s on…Read more...

Sunlight and summer rain can be great for outdoor plants, but it’s also a great time to give your indoor plants some fresh air. Unfortunately, though, some plants make it outside and then never make it back...because you killed them. The timing and positioning of your plants are important, along with some other…Read more...

You’d be forgiven if you’ve spent the last, oh, 15 months (or longer) in a constant state of anxiety. Certainly in 2021, it’s easy to forgot there is just as much to celebrate about life as to lament. Probably even more! Maybe. But remembering that—and striving to be a positive force in the world yourself—might…Read more...

You should never need an excuse to throw a party, but a graduation ceremony is certainly a perfect reason to festoon your home with decorations in honor of the big achievement. Graduation—from elementary school, middle school, high school, or college—is a rite of passage that deserves more than cake, finger foods and…Read more...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Prix Fixed, Lifehacker’s new menu-planning advice column. Whether you have a hot date, big anniversary, or are meeting the in-laws for the first time, we’ll help you plan an impressive menu suited to your dietary needs and culinary skillset. Will there be hacks? You bet your butt there…Read more...

Creaky joints may sound like a sign that you’re getting older and your body is falling apart, but in most cases your noisy knees are nothing to worry about. Let’s take a quick look at why joints make noise and how to know if there’s really a problem.Read more...

Taking fire nudes is exhilarating, right? Sending them is exciting and hot, as is receiving them. It’s all fun and games…until, sometimes, it’s not.Read more...

Google is testing an experimental RSS-based “Follow” feature in Chrome Canary on Android. Google says the feature is only an “experiment” for now and will decide whether to implement the feature publicly based on user and developer feedback, but this seems like good news for RSS lovers like me.Read more...

There are an infinite number of uses for duct tape. The super adhesive tape fixes ripped tents and makes durable wallets—kids have even gotten scholarships for designing duct tape dresses. You might forget some of the practical ways we can use duct tape to help us in a bind (or maybe you never even know them!), so…Read more...

Last week’s 0ut-of-touch guide touched on heavy internet darkness, so this week we’re keeping it light as a flyweight boxer trying to make his weight class. Nothing more serious than eating pasta, pestering squirrels, zombies taking over Las Vegas, and the oldest “teenager” since Dick Clark went to the bandstand in…Read more...

Remember HDTV? Full 1080p? Well those days are long gone, baby! Now 4k is the minimum acceptable definition you want to watch anything. Otherwise, what are you doing with your eyes?Read more...

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...