Lifehacker

We’ve almost made it to the end of the week! If you’re looking for something to watch tonight to help you sail into Friday, as usual, we’ve rounded up some of the best streaming events we’ve found on the web for the day.

What do you do if a recipe calls for baking soda but you only have baking powder, or if you have baking soda but not baking powder? As it turns out, there are options. You can make that quick bread, biscuits or cookies after all. You could even make all of them, which is always an acceptable choice in these stressful…Read more...

With college campuses shut down and admissions offices working remotely, prospective students may be unable to do in-person visits for the foreseeable future.Read more...

Google Lens has let users scan, save, and translate text using their smartphone cameras for years, but recent updates have added new features like text-to-speech narration, barcode scanning, and, as of the most recent update, the ability to snap photos of text—including hand-written text—and send the translated…Read more...

For more than 70 years, The Hartford Insurance Group has been training kids to become “junior fire marshals”—and now, with so many children out of school during the pandemic, the company has created an online training academy so children can continue to learn about fire prevention from the safety of their own homes.

Don’t let the pandemic ruin your weekly board game nights. In the video above, I share some ways I’ve been playing some of my favorite board games—including RISK, Monopoly and Settlers of Catan—online.Read more...

If you received a stimulus check made out to a deceased relative, or a direct deposit into one of their accounts that you control or even if you and a deceased spouse received a joint stimulus payment, the IRS is requesting that you return the money (or half of it, in the case of a joint payment). But how do you do…Read more...

Shallots are a top-tier allium. Sweeter and less harsh than yellow or red onions but every bit as flavorful, they’re one of those magic ingredients that make everything taste just a little bit more delicious. But they also make you work for it: Peeling shallots is a universally despised task, and for good reason.Read more...

Save 70% on 3 Years | NordVPNRead more...

Every day the internet forces me to confront the fact that I am much older than I think I am. Recently, this (since deleted) tweet did a nice job of it:Read more...

Recently, my son turned one year old, and with this milestone, he was due for his 12-month wellness visit. Or—wait—was he? I thought navigating appropriate finger foods for my son was tricky, then the world threw me a pandemic curveball. I wondered if the stay-at-home order in my state of Indiana, and the necessary…Read more...

Whether you love or hate Amazon doesn’t matter. Right now, two facts are clear: It’s probably taking you a bit longer to receive non-essential items from the retail giant, depending on what you’re ordering and when you’re ordering it, and there are a ton of small businesses going out of business right now because of…Read more...

The A.V. Club The best movies on Netflix |The Takeout The best cake recipes don’t need a special occasion |Kotaku The Best Star Wars Video Game |Gizmodo A Brief History of the Not-So-Brief Wait for Avatar 2 |The Root Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp: I Totally Messed Up Reopening the State, Growing Outbreak Is Stressing Resources |Read more...

We hear a lot about how the COVID-19 lockdown has affected small businesses and restaurants, but it’s impacting all aspects of our culture. Museums and art galleries are no exception, but as long as you have an iPhone, there’s a way to bring the art exhibits into your home—virtually, that is.

Asian giant hornets are large and stripey, yes. But so are several other insects. If you see something that looks a little like these “murder hornets” you’ve heard so much about, you may be tempted to kill it and/or convince yourself that the apocalypse has truly arrived. But please don’t. It’s almost certainly a case…Read more...

Right now, with travel at a standstill and essential workers toiling around the clock to keep us safe, it’s important we find ways to contribute whatever we can. If you’re looking to donate to worthy causes, there’s another way you can pitch in: by giving away the miles and points you’ve accrued through airlines and…Read more...

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and with a global pandemic keeping us apart, we still should celebrate the day for what it is—giving thanks to the women who made us who we are. Obviously mothers don’t have to be biological, maybe you’ve had an aunt or female figure in your life that gave you love. Either way, you should…Read more...

I try not to Slack on my phone if I can avoid it—the notifications get to be a bit much—but if I did, I’d do it on Android, for sure. And I’d also make sure I was enrolled in the beta for Slack’s Android app, because the new UI enhancements Slack is testing make the app even easier to navigate.Read more...

It’s Wednesday! If you’re looking for something to help you get over the hump and on to the end of the week we’ve dug up some of the best streaming options out there.

Google is about to turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) for all Nest users. That’s a good thing! Most people shouldn’t experience any difficulties with this security-enhancing measure, but there are a few quirks you should know about.Read more...

If there’s one thing this pandemic has taught us, it’s that we really like it when celebrities read to us. Actor Josh Gad was among the first (and he’s still at it!). Then American hero LeVar Burton stepped up to bring stories to life for kids, young adults and grown-ups alike. And now, Harry Potter himself is kicking…Read more...

Acknowledging the positives is a way to remember all that is good about life. However, as with everything, there can be too much of a good thing. This includes what is called toxic positivity, which is the relentless focus to only concentrate on the good, at the cost of ignoring all of the bad.Read more...

My budget makes absolutely no sense right now.Read more...

The CARES Act allows federal student loan borrowers to put off loan payments until October 2020—and many of those loans will be set at 0% interest during the forbearance period. This is different from other types of forbearance programs (think credit cards, mortgages), in which payments are waived but interest…Read more...

Your Google Home is a great device for requesting the weather, setting alarms, controlling your smart home or even creating a network of connected speakers, but you might not have an extra Google Home speaker to create an awesome sound setup in your home or apartment. That’s fine: You can just route your music through…Read more...

Are you noticing the birds outside your window more than you used to? No matter where you live, there’s probably some chirpy thing hanging around. If you’d like to test your knowledge—or just open your ears to the world around you—try this simple quiz.Read more...

If you are awake early Thursday morning, go outside and look up: It will be your last chance to view a supermoon this year. This month’s full moon is called the “full flower moon,” so named as a reference to all the flowers that are reaching full bloom around now. The next supermoon won’t happen until April 2021,…Read more...

As we get used to the new “normal” of shopping during the coronavirus outbreak, you’ve probably seen businesses advertising contactless transactions.Read more...

Remember when the coronavirus was not all anyone talked about? Remember the days when the topic that dominated conversation was a certain big-eared, wide-eyed little being that sort of resembles Yoda but in an impossibly cute way? I am, of course, referring to The Child, better known in all of our hearts as Baby Yoda,…Read more...

The road to haircut hell is paved with good questions. Questions like: Is the coronavirus pandemic the Flowbee’s time to shine?

A quirk of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is that it lets you join a Zoom call via the web, no separate app downloaded needed, but you can’t say anything on the call. Or at least, you couldn’t before the latest update.Read more...

Forget trying to find the perfect desktop wallpaper. Now that everyone’s using Zoom—or one of the many Zoom alternatives—it’s all about picking the right virtual background. Swapping in one of Zoom’s built-in backgrounds might’ve elicited a chuckle back when teleconferencing was a new thing, but now that we’re all…Read more...

50% off X-Sense Smoke Alarms | $9-$34 | X-Sense | Use promo code XSSD2L0AXRead more...

To help slow the seemingly endless spread of COVID-19-related misinformation on social media, the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) launched a chatbot on WhatsApp to help you sniff out coronavirus-related hoaxes. The bot cross-references questions sent by users with a database of information collected…Read more...

Allow me, if you will, a moment of culinary pettiness. Though I am almost always a champion of cooking what you like, what you have, and whatever’s easiest, I am extremely tired of seeing cacio e pepe pushed on people over and over again by food media. (If you are in the habit of reading tons of food sites, you may…Read more...

Some things are just unknown. And these days, that’s a lot of things. From the moment the coronavirus emerged as a threat, there have been far more unanswered questions than answered ones. When a virus is only five months old, how much can you possibly know?Read more...

We’re going to start traveling again one of these days, and as exciting as that is, it also carries with it plenty of risk. Take the risk of losing your wallet, for instance. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been in a Hudson News or Starbucks, put my wallet down and walked away—until one fateful trip where I…Read more...

Life during a pandemic doesn’t give us much to look forward to—especially since we don’t really have any idea when it’s ever going to end. But one of the rare positive side effects of our new quarantine lifestyle is our newfound virtual access to various national parks, museums and historical destinations. We’re…Read more...

I don’t know about you, but social distancing guidelines have changed how I play games. I’m lucky—or unlucky, depending on the day—to live with three other people. On one hand, I’ve been able to play a lot more couch co-op (like, a lot more). On the other, well, I’ve been able to play a lot more couch co-op. Over…Read more...

A preliminary scientific paper on covid-19—detailed by the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday—is sure to unnerve people. It argues that the world is now dealing with a mutated, more contagious form of the coronavirus that causes covid-19 than the version that originated in China. But scientists we spoke with are skeptical…Read more...

Happy Tuesday! If you’re on the hunt for something to watch tonight, per the usual, we’ve got you covered with a ton of different options.

Regardless of whether you live in a major city, a spacious suburb or a rural area, your day-to-day world has likely shrunk significantly thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most people are no longer commuting to jobs, doing school drop-offs or meeting friends at their favorite bar or restaurant. Our lives now center on…Read more...

In a time when our fitness options are limited, don’t discount the benefits of walking. Walking is free. Walking doesn’t require any fancy equipment or specialized knowledge. Walking is the most basic of motions, one of the first things we learn to do when we are young.Read more...

In addition to the loss of a normal social life, the disruption of academic routines and the cancellation of end-of-school-year celebrations, many high school juniors and seniors (and even some sophomores) are now grappling with preparing at home to take challenging Advanced Placement tests. While taking AP classes is…Read more...

Giving Tuesday, a day on which people are invited to make charitable contributions to organizations they support and value, usually takes place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (after Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday).Read more...

Asian giant hornets have probably been living in the Pacific Northwest for at least eight months now, but not until the New York Times called them “murder hornets” did we think to panic. It’s true that they’re dangerous to people and to beehives, but there’s still time to stop them from becoming established in North…Read more...

’Tis the season for refunds. If you bought tickets for travel or events taking place this year, there’s a good chance you’re getting back at least some of the money you spent.

I am not above eating a frozen anything, much less a frozen pizza, but I cannot help but make modifications. Even the best frozen pizza can benefit from a few tweaks or finishing touches. (This does not apply to Totino’s Party Pizza, which is its own unique, some would say “perfect,” product.)Read more...

If you’re fortunate enough to have an older person in your life—whether it’s a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or even a family friend—know that you basically have access to a living part of history. As a child, you may not have been interested in hearing their stories from the past, but as an adult, it’s much easier…Read more...

I don’t think it’s possible to cheat in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Or, rather, I don’t feel any guilt whatsoever about taking advantage of the game’s quirks to outfit your single-player island however you want. From time-traveling to Turnip Exchanges, there are plenty of methods you can use to circumvent the…Read more...