Lifehacker

Tired of getting told off in Steam chats? Sick of seeing words, phrases, or political statements that make you wonder why you even bother using chat rooms to begin with? With a new beta feature, you can now block various words and phrases from ever popping up in any chat throughout Valve’s Steam service.

Rumor has it that if you swallow chewing gum, it will stay lodged in your gut for seven years—a bezoar minus the magical poison-curing properties. Of course, as we’ve told you before, this isn’t true. But that doesn’t mean you have license to swallow your gum willy-nilly—or spit it on the ground, for that matter. The…Read more...

Caregiving is a burden under normal circumstances—and for many families, the pandemic has only made things more difficult. A recent AARP study found that almost one in five Americans provide unpaid care for another adult. The same percentage reported high levels of financial strain from caregiving, and it’s easy to…Read more...

When someone we know—or even a stranger we counter in the grocery store or on the bus—is clearly in distress, our first reaction is often to try to comfort the person. Whether it’s with words or offers of help, we don’t want to see someone going through a hard time. Also, people who are sad and upset make us…Read more...

This weekend is the Call of Duty League (CDL) championship tournament. Fans can tune in to watch the best Call of Duty: Modern Warfare teams compete live on August 29 and 30, and viewers have a chance to earn in-game rewards and potentially a spot in the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta.

Anise is a dark, dangerous, nihilistic flavor. Maybe it’s because I’m used to drinking and seeing other people drink absinthe at the local goth bar, or maybe it’s because absinthe was illegal in the US until 2007 (the year I turned 21), but it does not surprise me that this anise-forward libation has a decidedly bleak…Read more...

The other day, I randomly came across a post I wrote way back at the beginning of April when we were just 2-3 weeks into the pandemic. It was titled, “If You’re Struggling to Parent Right Now, You’re Not Alone,” and it reads now like a time capsule of grief. It brought me instantly back to how long, stressful, and …Read more...

Now is the time to deal with the built-up grime and burnt-on grease in your oven. You are home more often, so you have the extra time it takes to clean it properly. And since you’re cooking every meal at home, you can benefit more from the energy savings of not burning extra grease.Read more...

This is just a fun one. It helps if your sandbag has handles, or at least a nice bit of slack in the bag that you can grab onto easily. (Reminder: trim your nails.) We’re going to do sandbag cleans.Read more...

Zachary Shakked is a 24 year-old, self-employed iOS app developer who sets his own schedule. “I typically sleep in, no alarm clock, wake up around 9 or 10, eat breakfast (usually overnight oats or eggs and toast),” he explained over email. “I usually do a lot of grazing—I eat when I get hungry. I absolutely pound…Read more...

Sometimes the best hacks are the tiniest ones; a thing so helpful and obvious in hindsight that you really should have thought of it yourself. And maybe you did (good for you!). But if you, like me, had not yet thought to hand your child a stress ball when they log into their classroom Zoom meetings, now is the time…Read more...

An LG 55" OLED 4K TV, an $86 PNY SSD with 960GB of storage, a release-day discount on Project Cars 3, a BOGO sale on Enesco figures at Entertainment Earth, a ModCloth BOGO dress sale, a bug zapper racket set, and a Scott Pilgrim paperback comic collection lead Friday’s best deals.Read more...

Colleges from the Ivy League to two-year schools have moved all or some of their instruction online this year. (Eh, you know why). This can feel extra unfair for students who’d been looking forward to, say, living in a dorm or asking for help from the cutie sitting next to them instead of, like, their dads.Read more...

Fifty-seven years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver his enduring “I Have a Dream” speech, closing out the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This afternoon, another March on Washington will take place in the same spot—this time featuring members of some…Read more...

There’s a growing push for more financial literacy in schools, but one of the barriers to financial stability or growing wealth may have nothing to do with knowledge. In fact, some money problems may stem from past trauma or beliefs from childhood. These beliefs—which financial psychology pioneers Drs. Ted and Brad…Read more...

There are only a few short weeks until the election, and I know we say this every time, but it really is more important than ever to cast your vote on November 3. Not only are we electing the president who will lead us for the next four years and have to deal with whatever comes next with the pandemic, but we’re also…Read more...

Labor Day Doorbuster Sale | LenovoRead more...

You have an Android. Check. You have a computer. Check, check. You want to connect your Android to your computer to rip files off of it (or add files to it, like all those ringtones you spent hours designing). Check times three. You plug your phone in to your desktop or laptop’s USB port and...nothing happens.Read more...

Of all the big tech companies, Apple has arguably the best privacy policies. And with iOS 14, Apple is making yet another big privacy-focused upgrade to iOS. Once the new OS update hits this fall, users can choose to hide their device’s “Identifier for Advertisers” (IDFA) number from apps. And if you do, advertisers…Read more...

It’s been a rough few weeks for natural disasters in the United States. Even as the pandemic rages on, the country has also faced wildfires throughout the west, a derecho in the plains and hurricanes along the Gulf coast. If you have been lucky enough to avoid these disasters, it may be a good time to reassess your…Read more...

Have you heard? America is in the midst of a significant coin shortage, and like almost every blaze contributing to this trash fire of a year, this one was lit by the pandemic. As we first explained back at the beginning of July, the reduction in in-person shopping and banking during the COVID crisis has kept…Read more...

This school year is going to be downright bizarre. There is a lot of new in our new normal to adjust to—especially if, in addition to everything else, you’re also the new kid in what is suddenly a virtual classroom. Being new to the class is exciting and stressful during non-pandemic days, but how do you help your…Read more...

The latest Windows 10 update appears to be running the automatic hard drive optimization process more often than it needs to. While this is a necessary part of a hard drive’s upkeep, and letting Windows run the TRIM command on your SSD never hurts, excessively defragmenting the drive is generally unnecessary and can…Read more...

I don’t like preorders any more than you. I certainly hate seeing items available only in limited quantities go right to eBay—even before their launch date—at absurdly marked-up prices. And Sony is doing you one even better for the anticipated November launch of the PlayStation 5: A preorder preorder.Read more...

There’s no “safe” way to live in a dorm during a pandemic. As careful as your college kid may be, they can’t control whether Johnny Dumbass down the hall still does keg stands at frat parties on the weekends. Nothing is guaranteed with all these young people living together in a confined space with so many common…Read more...

Early this morning, Hurricane Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, battering the region with winds up to 150 mph. There is already one confirmed fatality, and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says he expects more to be reported over the next few days. While there is already extensive damage in Louisiana, Laura…Read more...

If you follow sports at all (or even if you don’t), you probably noticed that neither the NBA nor WNBA played any of the games they were scheduled to play yesterday. It started with the Milwaukee Bucks refusing to play their scheduled playoff game with the Orlando Magic, and quickly snowballed into no basketball games…Read more...

Before I tell you how to find the best strap-on harness for you, let’s get one thing straight: In this household, we do not say “pegging.”

Back in March, when COVID-19 was almost completely mysterious, I spent an insane amount of time disinfecting everything in my path. I sprayed down mail with Lysol. I scrubbed groceries clean before they crossed the threshold of our house. I sterilized every toy my son could have possibly slobbered on. It was a…Read more...

As students return to college campuses, many families worry about the lingering threat of coronavirus. While schools are taking steps to keep folks healthy, families should take extra precautions. If your child got sick and wound up in critical condition at the hospital, it could be difficult to get an update on their…Read more...

I’m writing this from lovely, sunny California—at least, I think it’s sunny, because smoke from the apocalypse wildfires around Silicon Valley has been billowing around the area for about a week or so. The quirky thing about this ecological disaster is that there are sometimes days of, “oh god the sun is red,”…Read more...

In my nearly five years of writing for Lifehacker, I have written about, edited, tested and developed many food hacks and recipes. Picking a favorite is not like picking a favorite child, only because I don’t have any children (and never felt those motherly emotions); picking a favorite child would be very easy for…Read more...

Twitter’s insistence on showing tweets out of order has been a long-running complaint. Sure, there’s a setting that claims to show your feed in chronological order, but it almost always resets back to the “top tweets” view if you don’t keep an eye on it.Read more...

With fall comes football. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of most college sports seasons, the NFL appears committed to proceeding undeterred, meaning the all-digital version of America’s most-watched sport is already ahead of the curve. Yep, it’s that time of year, when your inbox is met with email…Read more...

Featured Deal: Philips Hue LED Starter Kit | $179Read more...

Google Home version 2.27 adds a bunch of new features to the app, including new in-app controls for Nest home security products on iOS and Android and expanded device support for Android 11’s Power Menu shortcuts. Oh, and there’s finally a dark mode on Android—though it might be hard to turn on. Here’s how to access…Read more...

One enduring element of social movements is street art. Stories are told, lives are honored, and activism promoted through murals and graffiti. In recent months (and years), anti-racist protesters have produced a large swath of street art on walls and sidewalks across the country, and you can now visit many of those…Read more...

Everyone is the hero of their own life story, or so the enduring aphorism goes, yet enough of us are worried we might secretly be villains to have spawned an extremely active subreddit, Am I the Asshole? Here, people appeal to a jury of their internet peers to determine if their questionable behavior is either…Read more...

College students may not like the shift to online classes this fall—but there could be a silver lining: spending less money on room and board. While some schools aren’t offering housing refunds, you may get your money back—which could mean leftover money in your 529 college savings account. Thanks to the SECURE Act,…Read more...

While it sucks that smarter schools are shutting their campuses and switching to virtual learning, there’s one big, silver lining to this transition: It’s a hell of a lot easier to take notes, recordings, and automatically create full transcripts of your online classes and meetings.Read more...

Parents often use books as a way to introduce and spark conversations around important topics, concepts or themes with their kids. Using books in this way is particularly important now, as the country grapples with so many social justice issues. That’s why Netflix says it has created a new live-action show, Bookmarks:…Read more...

When it comes to music, there’s a fine line between catchy and annoying. And sometimes, a hook, a lick, even a single line of lyrics can lodge itself in your brain for days and refuse to leave. Science actually has a name for this phenomenon, one you’re probably familiar with—the slightly gross but extremely evocative…Read more...

Summer is drawing to a close, which means “Claire talking about corn season” is similarly on its way out the door and into the sunset (but only for one calendar year). But, until then, the corn is still plentiful and sweet, and I will continue to eat it, cook it, and share all of my corniest thoughts with you as they…Read more...

Fans of classical music may have a go-to composer, time period, or genre, and with so much falling under the “classical music” umbrella it’s a great feeling to find a particular piece or style that resonates with you. If you’re into any of the big-name classical composers of the past (Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi,…Read more...

One of the perks of living in a desert climate is that you don’t necessarily need air conditioning—in many cases, evaporative cooling will do the trick. Since so-called swamp coolers work best with good air circulation, we can leave our windows (and sometimes our doors) cracked all summer long. The downside? Flies…Read more...

Back-to-school is traditionally a stressful and trying time for kids. They just spent an entire summer (plus those “bonus” pandemic months in the spring) playing Minecraft, running through sprinklers, staying up late and catching all that ice cream you dropped from the rooftop. Now they’re either expected to sit still…Read more...

A discounted pair of Apple AirPods Pro, a Samsung Galaxy S10+ Gold Box, a Nintendo Switch digital games sale, a gray Nintendo Switch Lite, an exclusive deal on N95 masks, a Wisdom Panel pet DNA test kit, and a bObsweep PetHair robot vacuum lead Wednesday’s best deals.

As families prepare to send kids back to school, many worry about the high cost of supplies. Two in three parents are feeling stressed by the expense—which is up from 43% in 2019, according to CompareCards’ annual Back-to-School survey—and it’s easy to see why. The National Retail Federation says coronavirus may push…Read more...

I do not have a ton in common with children, but I hear they like chicken nuggets, and this is a feeling I can relate to. Little morsels of breaded bird are simple, delicious, and comforting, and clinging to simple comforts is something I find myself doing more and more. (It’s called regressing! Look it up!)Read more...

Like a kid on [holiday of your choice], Chrome 85 dropped to the masses yesterday. Or, at least, theoretically. When I went to fire up the browser yesterday afternoon and perform my typical ritual of navigating to its “About Google Chrome” to launch the update, nothing happened.Read more...