Lifehacker

Our country’s student loan debt is staggering. With the federal loan balance over $1.5 trillion, borrowers of all ages are struggling. Luckily, the government has taken steps to ease the repayment process.

Nowadays, it feels like Zoom is never going to give us up, remote working is never going to let us down, and we’re never going to run around anywhere again, because we’ll be stuck in a quarantine for another year. And if that’s as much Rick Astley as you need in your life right now, you’re going to want to make sure…Read more...

About once a year, I get depressed and make a mug cake. It is never very satisfying. There is something particularly bleak about measuring teaspoons and pinches of baking ingredients, only to be rewarded with a damp mug of something that is a vague approximation of cake.Read more...

The new H.266 video codec is a pretty big deal. You can’t play with it yet—tempted as you might be to go install Handbrake and bask in video encodes that are half the size of your already-optimized H.265 videos—but its very existence will speed up the eventual transition to 8K HDR video. And that’s a good thing,…Read more...

With the pandemic having caused massive upset within the travel industry, some have envisioned a future in which you’ll need to prove you’ve had a COVID-19 immunization before you can travel. Of course, such a vaccine doesn’t exist yet, let alone any regulations requiring you to get one. But for true world travelers,…Read more...

When you start a new job, you’ll probably be instructed to go to Human Resources (HR) if you ever experience any sort of harassment at work—but this path hasn’t always been the most useful one for employees. In fact, according to a new survey from Zenefits, one out of five workers do not trust their HR departments,…Read more...

Comparing yourself to others can be a dangerous thing, but it’s also motivating if you choose your comparisons carefully. I keep seeing people, especially new runners, complain that they’re “slow” or wonder how far away they are from the “average” runner.Read more...

It’s official: Taxes are due next week. Back in March, the government pushed the filing deadline to July 15, and the Treasury Department recently confirmed they won’t be moving it again. If you have been putting it off, now is the time to file your tax return and pay what you owe.Read more...

In the great American spirit of independence, some people have come up with an extremely shitty take on pandemic safety precautions. It goes something like: “I feel safe doing this. If you don’t, you should stay home.”Read more...

I remember when Apple first launched AirDrop on iOS back in 2013. A different version had already been around on the Mac for some time, and it was irrelevant, because AirDrop was far more useful when you could shoot files between different iPhones and laptops, not just the latter. At the time, I thought to myself,…Read more...

The true cost of owning a car goes well beyond the sticker price, beyond fixed costs like annual registration fees and monthly car insurance, even beyond the exquisite pain of the occasional parking ticket. Though you might think of it as little more than regular oil changes and a set of new tires every few years,…Read more...

A professional cellist has figured out exactly what we all need right now—our favorite TV, movie and video game theme songs arranged into 8- or 10-part cello compositions, performed entirely by her.Read more...

No matter how hard you scrub or soak, your pots and pans remain stained, brown, and grimy. And while well-used pans are a sign of your cooking prowess (or at least, how often you cook), sometimes you just want to see your own reflection in the bottom of a skillet.Read more...

Soaking watermelon in some sort of alcohol is hardly a new summer strategy. I’ve traditionally favored vodka or tequila—both of which are perfectly serviceable—as pretty much any single liquor can serve as a watermelon’s bathwater. But why stop at one when you could build a complete cocktail? That’s why this summer,…Read more...

A lot of us don’t wear sunscreen nearly as often as we should. Sometimes that’s because we don’t reapply it often enough (you should slather on more every two hours you are out and about in the sun, and more often if you’re swimming) or we don’t apply as much as we really need in the first place (you should be using…Read more...

It’s going to be an endless summer, and not in a cool “surfer-movie-from-the-1960s” way. You and your kiddies are looking at two more months of very little social contact and a lot of indoor time. Luckily, playing video games all day is just as fun as normal summertime activities like camping, traveling and…Read more...

Looking for a job is hard, but the stress doesn’t stop once you finally get an offer. It can be tempting to just say “yes” to the first offer you get, especially these days when the job market seems to be drying up, but you still need to make sure you’re happy with the deal you’re being offered—or even that the job…Read more...

Food can be fraught with emotion and meaning. When it’s labeled with a number of calories, even more so, because that number matches the food to your weight, your exercise habits, and your potentially complicated feelings about both.Read more...

I don’t have a Samsung smartphone, but if I did, I’d be pretty pissed about paying anywhere from $1,000-$2,000 for a device that comes packed full of native advertising. Your not-so-meager investment apparently isn’t enough for Samsung, which has taken to filling its default apps on its devices full of ads. There are…Read more...

Restaurants and bars are opening up across the country, and people sure are going to them! That is certainly a choice that I don’t feel comfortable making, but if you simply must go out right now and pay someone else to make and bring you your food, it’s very important that you don’t act like an unappreciative dweeb.Read more...

Time was, iPhone games were a distraction. You’d play them on a commute, or while the water boiled, or during Destiny loading screens. But that was then, and this is now. In case you didn’t know, today’s options today are just as polished (and fun!) as many console counterparts. And now that there are more games on…Read more...

Google Chrome’s incredible ability to bog down your system may soon be a thing of the past. The most recent Chrome Canary build includes big changes to the way Chrome handles background websites that could reduce Chrome’s strain on your device’s battery life. These changes should hopefully make their way to the stable…Read more...

The pandemic has plunged the entire world into crisis; people everywhere are in need of so much including jobs, access to healthcare, food, housing, and more. While travel is beginning to open up, not everyone is going to want to get on a plane, with no vaccine in sight.

Yes, it’s 2020, and bad things are happening. But the diagnoses of a few cases of plague in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia do not portend a rerun of the Black Death. Like the so-called murder hornets, this scare is another dud.Read more...

When the CARES Act was passed in late March, it provided a lifeline for people who were facing financial constraints due to the coronavirus pandemic: the ability to take early retirement account distributions without penalty.Read more...

One of the easiest things to predict in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the weather, and I’m not just talking about when it’s going to be a lovely sunny day on [your island name here]. With a brand-new data-mining hack, you’ll be able to know exactly when rainbows and the aurora borealis will appear—even when meteor…Read more...

COVID-19 is known to be transmitted mainly by respiratory droplets. This is the reasoning behind physical distancing, since it’s hard for those droplets to travel more than a few feet. But scientists are debating whether very small droplets—small enough to float through the air—are common enough and infectious enough…Read more...

When Apple launched its new credit card last summer, one of the big selling points was that it wasn’t like an ordinary credit card. It lives primarily in your Apple Wallet on your iPhone or iPad, and you don’t even get a physical card unless you request one.

Our pups have made it through the July 4th weekend, but chances are good the passing of another Independence Day hasn’t stopped your neighbors from setting off fireworks. We’ve shared tips for keeping your pup calm during fireworks displays in the past, but no matter how much you plan ahead, your dog will eventually…Read more...

I am currently in the process of buying my first home, and one of the more confusing (and frustrating) aspects of first-time homebuying involved the mortgage pre-approval letter. At what point in the process did I need to secure my pre-approval letter? Could I shop around for mortgage rates first? How much…Read more...

If you’re the parent of a toddler or preschooler, chances are you’ve discovered the joy (and the mess) that sensory activities can bring. When my son was that age, a bin full of strange material would occupy him for many minutes at a time—certainly more than plastic toys or games or puzzles ever could. The trick to a…Read more...

If you’ve run out of ways to make this summer exciting, we’ve got a suggestion you probably haven’t thought of yet—drop ice cream from your roof onto your kids. Or, rather, try to drop ice cream into the giant bowls your kids are holding, and hope for the best.Read more...

Getting food to go, even from your favorite restaurant, is not the same experience as eating at that restaurant. For instance, my favorite Lebanese restaurant (Nicholas) always sends out a giant pita for the table, which is served on its very own pedestal. Not only do I not have a pita pedestal (sad), I don’t have the…Read more...

You may be nervous to enter a doctor’s office right now. If you aren’t even supposed to be in a restaurant or classroom, how can you go to an enclosed space with other sick people?Read more...

Did you know there is a coin shortage in the U.S.? You probably haven’t noticed, unless you need them to do laundry.Read more...

You’re getting off the plane and you head to the bathroom to freshen up. You open your makeup bag, reach in, and end up with a colorful hand painted in sparkling eyeshadow and some kind of goo. Is that... facial wash? It is. You didn’t pack your makeup correctly, and these are the consequences. Here’s some ways to…Read more...

I’ll say it: This summer has been a bummer so far, and it’s not looking like it’s going to get much better. As the school year wound down, and summer approached, my son would even say things like, “Well, I’m going to be on summer vacation soon, not that it matters because we won’t be able to go anywhere or do…Read more...

Had I an option, I’d invert the colors in everything I do; dark mode is just so much easier on the eyes. And while WhatsApp users have been able to play around with dark mode on their apps for some time, only now are you getting the same option on WhatsApp’s web-based interface and desktop app.Read more...

Have you ever wondered why your cat bites you after just three pets? Or how to get your dog to chill out and stop barking? We’re uncovering the mysteries of our four-legged friends this week with help from animal behavior expert Zazie Todd. In this episode, you’ll hear about the underlying psychology behind why our…Read more...

GameCube-Style Wired Switch Controller (Mario Red) | $15 | Amazon

Eaters of onion rings have, at one point in their lives, bitten into an onion ring only to have the onion portion slide out of its crunchy home. It’s not the worst thing that can happen, but it is pretty frustrating, as the soft onion and fried batter are supposed to be enjoyed together. Waffling your onion rings…Read more...

Tribit XFree Go Bluetooth Headphones | $25 | AmazonRead more...

Two of Netflix’s buzziest summer debuts both land on July 10, at which point the streaming service’s audience will be divided into two camps: Those who stand with The Old Guard, a new high-concept action thriller starring Charlize Theron and based on an acclaimed comic; and those who can’t wait to find out why Zac…Read more...

Health-o-Meter Lose It! Smart Scale | $25 | MehRead more...

Are you someone who appreciates the subtle difference between two similar shades of red? Do you anxiously await the announcement of Pantone’s color of the year? Are you constantly making mental plans to redo various rooms in your home, despite not actually having the time, money or energy to do it? If so, you’ll…Read more...

As children, we were told not to stare (or even look directly at) the sun because it could hurt our eyes. Sure, that makes sense, but it also adds to the mystery of the sun. We know it’s bright, but what exactly does it look like? Thanks to NASA, you can wonder no more, because they recently released a 10-year time…Read more...

For the past few years, we’ve been told that loneliness is a public health crisis, as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes each day. The messaging is that we’re people—people who need people—and spending too much time by ourselves is a major problem. Oh, but at the same time, apparently we’re all introverts now, and …Read more...

Naipo Warmer and Cooler Seat Cover | $25 | Amazon | Use code 2S2IE4EJRead more...

With all this time at home this year, a lot of people have been getting into cooking. While some are just starting off and mastering basics like eggs (they’re harder than they look!), other more experienced home chefs are taking on new, more challenging projects. If you fall into that second category—or just enjoy…Read more...

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that most people are capable of handling far more than they thought. During the past few months, many of us have experienced unprecedented changes to our work, home and social lives. And just when you think you there’s no possible way of taking on another single thing, something…Read more...