Lifehacker

There are lots of reasons you might want to start working from your home, after you’ve become a parent. The commute is eating up too much of your day; you want to move to be closer to extended family but you want to take your job with you; or you simply crave the additional flexibility that working from home can…Read more...

I used to be a big fan of Starbucks’ wacky contests—those that reward you randomized stickers, tokens, or other trinkets on a digital playing field for completing various “buy stuff from Starbucks” challenges. And in saying that, I might as well be saying, “I’m a sucker.” It’s a lot shorter.Read more...

Oral B, Crest, and Gilette Gold Box | AmazonRead more...

Redditors love to ask each other for their favorite fun, mindblowing, counterintuitive, or disturbing facts. Every few months a new “fun fact” thread ends up on the front page of Reddit, and thousands of people pitch in with their favorites. I looked at years’ worth of threads, collected the very best facts, and…Read more...

It’s awards season, and Netflix has got a few certain winners in the mix. If you’ve already hoovered Marriage Story and The Irishman, you’ll want to set aside Friday for the big premiere of The Two Popes, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as Benedict and Francis, and is essentially exactly the same as The…Read more...

KitchenAid Gold Box | AmazonRead more...

Over the past few months I’ve had to go to a handful of different doctor’s appointments around town. I live in San Francisco and don’t own a car, so going to those appointments always means Lyfting to them. Without fail, before each and every one of them I end up getting ready to head out the door and then realize I…Read more...

Last night I attended a holiday party where my contribution was a plate of sausage and cheese balls and a 750ml bottle of Old Fashioneds. Both were well received, but the Old Fashioned perhaps caught the most attention. As it turns out, a lot of the party-goers had never considered making a bunch of them at once, and…Read more...

Last month Instagram started hiding the likes on some posts from U.S. accounts. The idea behind the move was to allow users to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes you get.”

Lifewit Shoe Storage Organizer, 2 Pack | $22 | Amazon | Promo code L9AO7OQ4Read more...

Working from home is fantastic in a lot of ways. Working alone at home can make things like lunch breaks and what clothing you’re wearing pretty flexible. It can also something like cleaning up your space optional, in some cases so optional that you might not do it all. No one is going to see your home office, right?

YouTube can be a great place to find music to listen to. Since it’s a video site; however, often that music comes with a video that can be distracting when you’re really just looking for some tunes. Music Mode is a Chrome Extension that can help.

This morning Samuel L. Jackson helped me out with a little holiday baking. By “help,” I mean that was the one that told me it was time to take some cookies out of the oven, a job normally reserved for my kitchen Alexa.

LG 27" 4K UHD IPS Monitor with FreeSync | $300 | AmazonRead more...

For eight years, I’ve been unable to grow leg hair along my shins.

Just in the nick of time before a new round of tariffs was supposed to go into effect, the U.S. and China have announced a limited deal to end the trade war. Eventually.

The Game Awards were last night. And while we do love a pretty trophy (and are sad The Outer Worlds didn’t take top honors), there’s more to the event than pixel pageantry. Coinciding with the big day, there’s also a PC “Game Festival” going on—all on Steam—that features some great time-locked demos you can play right…Read more...

An annoying lock screen bug has been bothering some unlucky Android users for months now, locking them out of their devices by way of a weird authentication loop. The bug has been present as far back as September, when it was originally spotted on Pixel XL devices. It remains unfixed and, worse, seems to be cropping…Read more...

With Boris Johnson winning the election in Britain, you’ve probably seen a bunch of headlines about how Brexit is sure to happen. But it’s not that simple. Let’s break down the event and what it means for the U.K.—and what it might (eventually) mean for us in the U.S.

Tonight’s nearly full moon is still a visual treat in the night sky, but there’s another light show going on at the same time: the Geminid meteor shower. It’s the second-to-last meteor shower of the year.Read more...

Do you love birds? Do you also not hate being outside in the cold? There’s an annual census of birds that occurs each year around this time, and in many locations there’s still time to sign up to help.Read more...

When we got all excited about Apple’s new Communication Limits that allow you to restrict who your kid can talk to (and when), we didn’t realize Apple left a big loophole that makes it very easy for your crafty child to bypass these restrictions.Read more...

Google Photos has a few AI-driven features that enhance your photos and build “automated creations” on your behalf—such as slideshow videos, collages, and animations of your shots. For example, the Google Photos AI might create a slideshow based on your hiking adventure last weekend, giving you a neat way to view your…Read more...

With all the hacks we test every day, it’s hard to differentiate which ones are trendy, and which are real game changers.Read more...

If you’re flying home for the holidays, get ready for lines of all kinds—according to a forecast by advocacy group Airlines for America, more than 47 million Americans will fly in the days leading up to Christmas and through January 5, 2020, representing roughly 2.6 million passengers a day.

God I love content-aware fill. At Lifehacker I frequently want to illustrate a post with an image that’s not wide enough (like above). So I throw it into Photoshop, I expand the canvas size, I select the new blank parts on the sides, and I hit my cmd+option+F—my custom shortcut for Edit > Content-Aware Fill.

Closing a credit card isn’t always great for your credit score. If you’re closing your oldest credit card, for example, it might reduce your overall age of credit— and the credit bureaus often dole out a few extra credit score points for people who have maintained the same credit accounts for, like, decades.Read more...

A holiday riff on a classic cocktail is a fine thing, but the “seasonal twist” always seems to start and stop with cinnamon. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with cinnamon—it’s accessible and uncontroversial, it reads as sweet without adding actual sweetness, and it is even purportedly good for your blood…Read more...

We get it, it’s fun to choose the perfect emoji when sending or requesting money from friends on Venmo. It shouldn’t be so much fun, but somehow, it is. But everyone needs to find a new way to get three seconds of joy, because you’re putting yourself at risk if you don’t have your Venmo account set to “private.”

As of today, all Alexa users can finally use their Alexa to play podcasts through Spotify, simply by saying “Alexa, play The Upgrade on Spotify.” If you’re partway through an episode on the Spotify app, Alexa will pick up where you left off, and vice versa. No more juggling your progress between the two apps.

Do you want to do a pull-up? Can you already do a few, but want to move forward from here? In our series of year-end fitness benchmarks, here are several levels of pull-up oriented tests to gauge your progress.Read more...

iOS: Here’s a silly thing to do on a Friday. Download Rewound, and listen to your Apple Music library (streaming or owned) through an old click-wheel iPod interface.

We got our first dusting of snow in Eastern Pennsylvania earlier this week, which reminded me that we are fast approaching the first big snowfall of the year. And that snowfall will be followed by a couple of snow days and my son’s burning desire to play in the snow and build a snowman without his gloves getting too…Read more...

It’s been another year of big 5G promises, and while we’ve seen the first 5G devices hit the market and an ever-increasing number of ads touting the glory of 5G speeds over the past 12 months, the tech still isn’t worth the money for the average smartphone user. That’s especially true for most of T-Mobile’s new…Read more...

Our quest to explain every weird thing at the gym has now landed on Fat Gripz, the heavy rubber handles, often blue, that you can wrap around barbells and dumbbells. Their main job is to make the bar harder to hold onto, which can be a good thing.Read more...

Next time you want to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language, you might be able to do it using just your phone.

I was writing a sentence the other day that included the sentiment that something was of “the utmost importance.” And I paused. Was it utmost? Or was it upmost? I was pretty sure it was “utmost,” but I was also pretty sure I’d seen/heard “upmost” at some point in my life. What’s the difference?Read more...

Microsoft accidentally pushed yet another unnecessary Windows 10 update. This week’s “KB4532441" update went out to regular users of Windows 10, even though the update was meant for those using Windows Autopilot—a way for IT departments to set up and manage new computers. Microsoft even let loose with a number of…Read more...

Chuck E. Cheese is a cacophony for the senses—buzzes and bells and screeches, crowds and music and overstimulated kids (and parents), colors and lights every which way. It’s a lot for those who don’t have sensory-processing challenges. But for people who are sensory sensitive it can be Way. Too. Much.

Hello, all you little orgasm dermestid beetles, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column to help you take your relationship out of early access.

If you’re flying around Christmas this year, schedule some delay time into your schedule. And if you want to optimize, check out the delay rates and average delay time at different airports. The artificial Christmas tree site Treetopia, in a useful bit of branded data journalism, analyzed government flight data from…Read more...

In a story for the New York Times, one traveler with a severe apple allergy shared her recent experience being denied boarding to her Emirates Airlines flight. According to her account, she had filled out a medical request form acknowledging her allergy and provided it to the airline—but that paperwork wasn’t enough…Read more...

Tonight’s full moon is the last one we’ll see before 2020. And conveniently for those of us who go to bed early, sunset is always the perfect time to see the full moon.Read more...

I’ve had my share of roommates, including more than one stint in one of those group houses where it seems like there’s a new roommate every other month, and have experienced nearly everything that can go wrong financially.

The difference between restaurant food and homemade is widest when extreme heat is required. Commercial ovens are designed to reach the high temperatures needed for blistered pizza and crusty artisan bread; home ovens just aren’t. But even if you’ve got an ancient, wimpy rental, clever rack positioning can trick your…Read more...

Maybe you’ve already started to reflect on where 2019 has taken you, and what you want to focus on in 2020. You’re planning a trip, or figuring out how to get back to the gym regularly, or thinking of starting a hobby. But have you thought about your money?

If you own a Ring camera and you’ve seen headlines like Vice’s “How Hackers Are Breaking Into Ring Cameras,” you’re undoubtedly a bit nervous. Has someone broken into your own home setup? Are they watching you? Your pets? Your kids?Read more...

Sharp 50" 2160p UHD TV with HDR Roku TV + Google Nest Mini | $200 | Best BuyRead more...

We’re all told to save up as much money as possible. But are there some things that are worth spending a few extra bucks on?Read more...

If you parent a toddler, you already know that having an arsenal of snacks while traveling is Of The Utmost Importance. Snacks stave off hanger tantrums, they give you flexibility if your food options are limited and, if you’re flying, the swallowing can help combat middle ear pressure during take-offs and landings.Read more...