Lifehacker

Last month, I felt a disturbance in the Force, as if millions of crappy songs from 2003 to 2015 cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. And they were. MySpace—yes, it’s still around—lost all the music uploaded to the site between these years thanks to some corrupted data during a server migration. Whoops.

There’s a big difference between leveling up in a language learning app and being able to speak and understand your target language when you arrive in a new country. Rather than wondering which app or approach is “best,” consider studying your language from multiple directions.Read more...

My typical morning routine involves opening a handful of programs—Slack, Steam, my web browser, Discord, Spotify, et cetera. While I keep my most-used apps pinned to my Windows taskbar, I still have a few apps I’ll open from my Start menu (to help reduce clutter).Read more...

This seems like it should be basic knowledge, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve asked someone to take my picture, handed them a phone, and then stood there frozen as they turn it towards me...and nothing happens. Are they taking a picture? Are they looking through my email? What’s going on over there?…Read more...

This week, former Vice President Joe Biden publicly apologized in a video on Twitter, after allegations by several women accusing him of inappropriate physical contact.

Any burger lover worth their salt knows that grinding your own meat is absolutely essential if you want the best possible results, and if you already own a KitchenAid, you can add a fancy, metal grinder for just $53 today, $20 less than usual.

Walt Disney once said: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” He likely wasn’t referring to navigating his legendary theme park with a toddler, yet this has become my mantra when I bring my almost-three-year-old to Disneyland.

If you work with a CPA or an accounting firm to get your taxes done, you might have received some nerve-wracking news recently: due to a combination of factors including our recent government shutdown and the new tax laws, a lot of tax preparers are behind schedule and not everybody’s taxes will be filed on time. To…Read more...

When my son was 4, he—like most 4-year-olds—needed to move. A lot. In addition, he was the type of kid who did well when he was able to get extra sensory input, even during down time.

Have you gotten out the door yet to join our running challenge? This April, we’re going to explore the different kinds of workouts runners do, to show you that it doesn’t have to be just one long painful slog. As we head into the second week, let’s explore my least favorite variation (I promise it gets better from…Read more...

Deadspin These New Jets Uniforms S-U-C-K Suck Suck Suck | Splinter The Leaked Photos Showing the Horrific Toll of Violence Inside an Alabama Prison | Jezebel Olivia Jade Thinks Aunt Becky ‘Ruined Everything’ | The Root The Yee-Haw Agenda Flourishes: Lil Nas X Adds Country Heavyweight to ‘Old Town Road’ Remix | Film …Read more...

Freelancers and side hustlers: how much money do you want to make this year?

Roasted vegetable season is very nearly behind us, so it makes sense that I’ve only just figured out the perfect way to oil a sheet pan—and, of course, it involves a bench scraper.Read more...

To meet some of the most famous old people in the world, I flew to Costa Rica. Where most folks from my flight probably headed straight for the beach, the Lifehacker crew and I drove into the hot, dry hills of the Nicoya peninsula.Read more...

I talk a lot about wireless networking in this Tech 911 advice column. And this week is no exception. Just when I think we’ve covered everything, a reader question pops up that demands attention—partly because it’s a quirky question, and partly because I love starting my Friday mornings with a fresh cup of…Read more...

Luggage gets all the attention, but if you ask me, the most important piece of travel gear you can own is a good toiletry kit. This one from Zero Grid is made from water-resistant ripstop nylon (which is just as important for keeping liquids in as it is keeping them out), and carries a 4.4 star review average. Get it…Read more...

The waste has been scrubbed away and the nominations are dry: These are our readers’ five favorite dish racks. As always, check out what everyone had to say below, then be sure to vote at the bottom of the post.

Ever skeptical of booking an AirBnb because of its terrible reviews? (Small kitchen! Bad location! Not enough toilet paper!)

The past few years have brought us a number of exciting new food-based holidays ranging from National National Pizza Day (February 9th) to National Beer Day (coming up April 7th!). While we can all (hopefully) agree that these aren’t exactly real “holidays” they do often equal real savings on whatever the day is…Read more...

Earlier this year, after watching the entire season of Tidying Up With Marie Kondo with the rest of clutter-prone America, I had one impassioned takeaway: Boxes. I needed those storage boxes.

I’ve never been a person who cares much about models when renting a car. Oh, this one’s the cheapest, has at least one functioning USB and a way to connect my phone to the speakers? Great, fine, I’ll take that one, thanks.Read more...

In Japan, eating ramen is a near goddamn religious experience.

Since the karate craze of the 1970s, countless armies of kids have punched, kicked, and yelled “hi YAH!” at strip mall dojos and community center martial arts classes across America. Martial arts training fosters discipline, encourages physical fitness, and gets your kid out of your hair for a couple of hours a week.…Read more...

A native speaker and a non-native speaker walk into a bar.Read more...

When Train wanders into the forests of Argentina, he’s on a mission. This 12-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever is a trained detective, but he’s not looking for illegal narcotics growing among the bamboo and vines. Train is using his big black nose to sniff out poop. And not just any poop, but the feces of some of the…Read more...

Hello all you fiery sex-buckets, and welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column to pivot entirely to Fortnite.

Rhiannon tells me that the kid she nannies used to collect disposable latex gloves. This started when he was around two. Any time he’d see latex gloves—at the doctor’s office, at nursery school, in a random first aid kid mounted to the wall—he’d ask if he could have them. He preferred the “blue glubs” but the “kinda…Read more...

While it doesn’t have the brand recognition of Nest’s learning Thermostat, the Ecobee4 Smart Thermostat one-ups its most popular competitor by pairing with wireless remote sensors that you can place elsewhere in your house, giving the thermostat a more accurate picture of your home’s overall temperature. Plus, it’ll…Read more...

The next time you get an unexpectedly high medical bill, don’t assume you have to pay it off in full. We’ve written before about what to do if you get a surprise medical bill and how to check your bill against your explanation of benefits; now, Sarah Kliff at Vox explains how you can challenge medical bills—and win.Read more...

Procrastination may be the reason you’re reading this post, but the reason you’re procrastinating in the first place might actually be anxiety.

I am fully aware of how this sounds, but I only eat homemade mayo. It’s partially a budget thing and partially out of convenience—even in large quantities, mayo is incredibly cheap and easy to make—but more than anything else, it’s about flavor. Homemade mayo will always taste fresher and just plain better than…Read more...

Where do you see yourself in five years?

We as a society waste a ton of food, by some accounts 40% of everything we produce. It takes a lot of money, time, effort, water, and fertilizer to grow the fruits and veggies we throw away. A few companies are trying to help by selling boxes full of misshapen produce that they say would otherwise have gone to…Read more...

A few years ago, I went on a business trip to Scotland with journalists from other parts of the world. On the trip, we used WhatsApp to stay connected, which encouraged the participants to stay in touch via WhatsApp as well, especially in the form of group chats.

The Grapevine A Photo of Beyoncé’s Kids Made It to Social Media and Somebody Getting Fired | Deadspin A Reasoned And Correct Ranking Of NBA Teams, By Their Suitability For Zion Williamson | Jezebel The #IMomSoHard Universe of Spanx, Wine, and Swimsuits | Splinter Investigators Reportedly Worried Trump’s AG is…Read more...

Sometimes, when you’re out and about in the world, you may find that it would be really helpful to have a tape measure.Read more...

Peak Design’s Travel Line backpack system is incredibly well thought out, incredibly well made, and...incredibly expensive. Huckberry’s here to help with that last part today, at least a little bit. For a limited time, $370 gets you the backpack with the tech kit and the wash kit (a toiletry bag), both of which are…Read more...

Habitat loss is a major factor in the decline of insect populations around the world, a trend that one group of researchers has warned could bring about the “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems.” For instance, the monarch butterfly population has fallen 99.4 percent since the 1980s—a precipitous decline that…Read more...

Android: Microsoft is currently testing a fun new feature that allows you to import data into Excel by taking a picture of it—preferably a data table and not, say, your cat. That won’t do anything.

Dan Levy is best known right now for his portrayal of David rose in the beloved hit Schitt’s Creek, about a once-rich family living in the town they bought as a joke. Levy is also the series’ showrunner and creator, and he has some advice for how to amp your creative talent.Read more...

This week, the European Union banned the single-use plastic straw once-and-for-all, joining hotel chains, restaurants, Disneyland theme parks, and grocery store chains across the U.S.

We often envision the perpetrators of spyware attacks as remote hackers with anonymous identities, breaking into our networks, accounts, and even devices via digital means. However, in recent years, one of the most common uses of spyware is in cases of domestic abuse. Often, abusive partners will use otherwise “legal”…Read more...

If you still don’t believe that electric cars are, at the very least, going to be a big part of our automotive future, then, well, I suppose have fun in your beautiful gasoline-soaked fantasy life. If you’re like most everyone else with eyes and brains, you know EVs are here to stay, and it makes sense to get to know…Read more...

I haven’t paid for a haircut since January.

There is a certain scenario that my son liked to play with me when he was four years old. We’d make a house, a train and a ticket booth out of Lego Duplo blocks. A conductor would come to the house, pick up a guy and his Dalmation and take them to the dinosaur museum, which actually housed real dinosaurs and seemed…Read more...

What’s worse than a long, winding security line at an airport with no visible end in sight? A closed line—with no access to your flight—as one traveler recently discovered.

As a nation, we’re good at doing things not necessarily well, but doing them a lot. This manifests in our politics, and also in the way we eat, as evidenced by our collectively expanding waistlines. It follows then that our attempts to trim those waistlines are also incredibly extra, just absolutely insane things…Read more...

I came to the sport of running later in life, mostly because the stress of having two children in quick succession took a toll on my physical and emotional health. After joining a local couch to 5K program, I quickly made mom friends who shared my obsession with pounding the pavement in an effort to maintain my sanity.

Like many families with small children, we have a “witching hour.” Around 6 p.m., the toddler pulls out all her naughty tricks, the 5-year-old switches into turbo gear, my husband gets frustrated, and I am totally out of gas.

Would you spend $40 to save time?