Lifehacker

It feels great to buy someone something they specifically want, while still keeping it a surprise. If you’re trying to find the perfect gift for a friend or colleague, the answer is in your chats, emails, and social media: search their messages for the phrase “I want.”

In an effort to appeal to the Tide Pod generation, The Glenlivet has released their “Capsule Collection,” which consists of small portions of alcohol enrobed in edible seaweed packaging. You do not need ice, a stirrer, or a glass to consume the capsules, but it’s not like those things were difficult to come by.Read more...

Android users can safely expect new security patches to roll out from Google at a regular clip, but the specific timing depends on your device. Google products, like the Pixel line, usually get new patches every month, while Android phones from other manufacturers can vary.Read more...

If someone close to you has ever lost a child, you know how devastating that type of loss can be—and how utterly helpless it can feel to those who love them and can’t ease their pain. While there is no “fixing” this deep of a loss, there are things that friends and family can do to support them as they grieve.Read more...

Do you remember that time Suze Orman said we should take all the money we’re “peeing down the drain” on coffee and invest it instead? You could take the $100 a month you spend on coffee, she said (yelled? I think she yelled) and end up with a million dollars for your retirement.

Apple’s latest operating system update—released yesterday—comes with plenty of new and exciting features. However, macOS Catalina also comes with one big drawback: Apple won’t let you run 32-bit apps anymore. If that’s a big issue for you, or you’re concerned that critical apps you need won’t be supported in the…Read more...

The age-old question of parents everywhere—What do I do with all these freaking LEGOs?—may finally have a good answer. LEGO has teamed up with a logistics company to collect all those tiny hard plastic bricks you’ve been stepping on for years, clean them and donate them to kids in need.Read more...

If you ended up unconscious and on life support, how long would you want your family to wait and see whether you recovered? If you want to make sure your wishes are respected, consider an advance medical directive.Read more...

In case you feel tempted to give your pet candy this Halloween, here’s a quick reminder: don’t. While candy seems harmless enough, your pet can’t safely consume most store-bought candy, and in some instances, the choice of sweet can even prove deadly.Read more...

There are two kinds of happiness—the kind that lasts for an instant and the kind that can permeate an entire lifetime.Read more...

Candy corn is a bad candy. At least that is the opinion that I have clung to for years, publicly declaring it “garbage” every October, on every social media platform I frequent. But there are a lot of real things of consequence to be yelling about right now, and being mad online about candy seems dumb. People deserve…Read more...

As much as some people hate to admit it, humans are not perfect. We know what we should do—like exercise, eat well and get plenty of sleep—but don’t always measure up. And sometimes what starts as an occasional oversight, slip-up or coping mechanism becomes a full-fledged bad habit. The good news is that it’s entirely…Read more...

You’ve plunked down a security deposit and first and last month’s rent for an apartment. Your bank account may be screaming from the up-front outlay, but wait. There’s more. You’re not done spending.Read more...

Two months ago, my teenage son passed his driver’s test with flying colors. Though the initial terror of watching him drive away has passed and our son is proving to be a competent driver, we are still working out the kinks.Read more...

When a new job just isn’t working out, you might be concerned about what quitting might mean for your resume and career. You’ll feel like your short, six-month stay at a company might overshadow all your other professional accomplishments and spiral into an identity crisis.

Summer in Chicago gets all the press, but fall around here is the real ass-kicking season. It’s got all the outdoor fun of summer combined with the hibernation-prep comfort foods of early winter. Porch drinking and chili weather? Those festival-scheduling pagans knew what was up.Read more...

Have you ever started asking someone to help you solve a problem, and halfway through, you figure it out yourself? It feels great. It feels even better when you learn to do it on purpose—and when you learn to do it without wasting another person’s time.

iOS: Instagram just updated with dark mode, so you can stare at people’s brightly colored vacation photos and ads for horrible coffee tables surrounded by inky black, like you’re developing film in a darkroom. The only way to turn it on is by enabling dark mode across all of iOS.

I spent every moment of daylight this past weekend tending to a 1985 Jeep J10 and a 2000 Jeep Cherokee. Why did I sacrifice the few precious hours I have to possibly enjoy a social life? Because if I wait too much longer to fix my cars, I’ll be royally screwed. And so will you if you do the same.Read more...

As a fan of miniatures and free things, I have always appreciated—and hoarded—hotel toiletries. When traveling, I’ll often hide the bottles after showering, just to make sure they get replenished each day. This means I go home with many tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, where they sit in a basket,…Read more...

We’ve done the usual triangle-eyes-and-toothy-grin jack-o’-lanterns in my home plenty of times. We’ve carved pumpkins, we’ve painted pumpkins, we even did this one year for whatever reason:Read more...

$250. $450. $550. The annual fees for top travel rewards cards keep creeping up. But active duty military service members don’t have to pay those fees at all. That hefty discount is thanks to the Military Lending Act (MLA) and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), the laws designed to protect military service…Read more...

Google’s monthly Android security fixes are normally just for Google devices, but Samsung, Motorola, LG, Oppo, Huawei, and Xiaomi are all rolling out their own versions of the October 2019 security update to patch a major zero-day security vulnerability present on several Android smartphones. Those with vulnerable…Read more...

Last week, a couple spent nearly $11,800 on a two-week stay at an Airbnb in Ibiza, Spain—only to discover the listing was a fraud. Upon check-in, they learned that the property didn’t even exist and found themselves scrambling to find a hotel last-minute while struggling to communicate with Airbnb.

Talking about games with someone who doesn’t play them can be hard. How do you explain why you like a certain genre or series, if the person isn’t familiar with the genre you’re describing? It can be just as complicated to explain the more specific storyline or mechanics of the game you’re currently obsessed with. You…Read more...

The nicest thing you can say to your friend is “Fuck you!” Not when you’re actually mad, but when you’re goofing around and they just got you good, and you’re acknowledging that yeah, you’re owned. That “fuck you” says “We are in a circle of trust and intimacy, and because of this we do not need to be polite.”

If you bought a pair of $250 Bose Sleepbuds in order to get a better night’s sleep, you should know that Bose just discontinued its noise-masking Sleepbuds and is offering customers a full refund.Read more...

According to a late-September bug report from Google’s Project Zero team, an issue with the popular covert messaging app Signal, on Android, allowed any attacker to essentially eavesdrop on a person’s device (via audio, not video).Read more...

As I have mentioned previously, I am a product baker, not a process baker. Folding, rolling, chilling, and beating rarely offer any type of catharsis, and making pastry stresses me out. Because of this, I am always looking for easy but delicious pie crusts, and the pretzel crust is my new favorite.Read more...

Charisma is one of those things that people assume you’re born with, but that’s not necessarily the case. Regardless of your personality type, it’s entirely possible to become more likable and develop your charisma. The key is to focus on certain traits you can practice and apply to your own behavior that can possibly…Read more...

When you consider which credit card to apply for, you might first notice if a card has a signup bonus or offers a high rate of rewards. But if you plan to travel internationally, should look past the rewards and make sure you’re getting an increasingly common card benefit: zero foreign transaction fees.Read more...

It’s never been easier to read, thanks to our phones—we’re all carrying entire bookstores around in our pockets. In the video above, I share our favorite apps for reading books, listening to audiobooks, and purchasing comics.Read more...

There’s a common expression among fitness subreddits and lifting forums: The day you start lifting is the day you become forever small. In other words, you might not ever feel satisfied after years of hard work or when you reach your goals.

Whether fair or not, teenagers have somewhat of a bad rap. They’re stereotypically sullen, they talk back and they’re embarrassed by our very existence. Not always, of course, but parents can find their relationship with their child strained during the teenage years. And it’s not necessarily the kid’s fault.Read more...

I confess, I love using Twitter lists. While it’s “easy” to just scroll through the regular ol’ feed on your Twitter app, this process annoys me for two main reasons: It always reverts back to “top Tweets” instead of a chronological feed, which is frustrating, and I keep seeing random promoted tweets in my feed. Meh.Read more...

Are some playgrounds objectively the best, or is it a matter of taste? My kid is still too young to stand or walk without holding onto something, so we take her to a “tot lot”—one that’s not part of a larger playground where big kids (and for us “big” means out of diapers) tromp over and use the age-inappropriate…Read more...

A new season of Schitt’s Creek arrives on Thursday, which is really the best news you’ve had in ages, n’est-ce pas? I couldn’t wait for the Netflix drop and so already watched the season on Pop TV (Pop TV’s other hit is a reality show about Alan Thicke called Unusually Thicke, which seems like a show Moira Rose would…Read more...

When I first started writing, a short 300-500-word story like this one would take me literal days to write. I was publishing something for people to read, and I wanted to make sure every word was perfect.

Last year, Jeff Darcey blew the internet’s collective mind when he shared his hack for keeping the sun out of his hotel room using a clothes hanger.

If you have an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, especially one you can’t get tot turn on, we may have good news for you.

Last week I traveled on a flight which, like many others, was significantly delayed. It was something I knew when I arrived at the airport, so I went ahead and took some extra time to grab breakfast. It was also a detail shared with me courtesy of the airline’s app.

I hate business cards.

Google rolled out a new shopping tool this week that makes it easy to track the price of an item you’re interested in on the web and find out when it drops in price.

This week, Destiny 2—Bungie’s long-running sci-fi shoot-and-loot extravaganza—got a thorough overhaul. With its Shadowkeep expansion, longtime players were introduced to some pretty extensive changes. For everyone else, Destiny 2: New Light took the base game and made it free-to-play, welcoming a host of new players…Read more...

This week, a few big-name brokerages like Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade announced they would reduce their commissions on online stock and ETF (exchange-traded fund) trading to zero.

If you’ve noticed a slowdown in your Netflix streaming or web browsing, there’s a chance that you’ve got someone mooching off your internet. While it may just be a neighbor who’s too cheap to buy their own plan, you’ll want to find out for sure if someone’s stealing your wifi and upgrade your security accordingly.…Read more...

How do you find and read your news? It seems like most people rely on their Facebook or Twitter feeds for the latest headlines, but I’m skeptical of this method. Not only do you have to contend with fake news and shady ads pretending to be headlines, but there’s also a glut of research telling us spending too much…Read more...

TEKTON 2830 Everybit (TM) Precision Bit and Driver Kit | $7 | AmazonRead more...

If you’re like me, you can remember getting a couple of bucks each week as an allowance when you were a kid. You’d use it for an ice cream from the corner store or you’d save it up until you had enough to buy a new book from the mall. Fast-forward to today, and it seems our kids are getting a whole lot more than ice…Read more...

In a (failed) quest to remove a years-old custom keyboard shortcut from my MacBook Pro, I inadvertently found a handy option in the keyboard settings that makes accessing emojis on desktop much easier.