Lifehacker

Not all smart speakers are created equal. In fact, some barely meet the qualifications to be called “smart” in the first place—but they’re getting better at answering your questions, assuming they can understand what you’re saying.Read more...

The time between Christmas and New Year’s is a strange one. Things feel oddly festive and slightly depressing at the same time, I never know what day it is, and I am so, so tired of food. Not only am I tired of the holiday leftovers in my fridge, I’m tired of thinking about food in general. Obviously, the solution to…Read more...

We have a roundup of our favorite Two Cents articles of 2018, but when it comes to money, there’s so much more to understand beyond the practical “how tos.” The ins and outs of predatory lenders and how they prey on people, what the weight of student loan debt can do to a family and a frank conversation about why the…Read more...

As the year winds down, now is a great time to get your digital life in order. From organizing your online photos to refreshing your accounts with new, secure passwords or finally cleaning up your browser bookmarks; there’s a lot for you to tackle before 2019 hits.Read more...

Dinner rolls are great for sopping up gravy and making little leftover sandwiches. But when it comes to grilled cheese, their already browned exterior, doesn’t grill as well as sliced white bread. The solution to this not-quite-problem is simple: just turn the rolls inside out.Read more...

This is not a story about your religious obligations! Even my Bible-thumping parents never dragged the family to church if our vacation overlapped with Sunday morning. But there are two great reasons to attend a religious service while you travel, regardless of your personal beliefs.

Everyone wants to hijack your January. Most people want you to stop drinking for the month, on the premise you’ve been overdoing it over the holidays and need to dry out. Others think it’s time to go vegan. I’m sure someone you know is trying to convince you to go to hot yoga every day of January to sweat out “the…Read more...

These days, a digital thermometer is up there with a good knife on the list of indispensable kitchen tools, but you never hear anyone recommend their analog predecessors. That’s too bad: old-school thermometers do the exact same job for a fraction of the price.Read more...

As the year winds to a close, it’s time to look back at all the tech-related fun we’ve had the last 300-plus days. Smile at the new upgrades we purchased! Cringe at all the apps we wasted time and money on! Not talk about some of those gadgets that decent amount of money and seemed cool at the time, but now collect…Read more...

We all have opinions on the best apples, but these are the correct opinions. My qualifications: I have eaten a lot of apples. I’ve been lucky enough to taste antique varieties of apples and experimental research varieties of apples. If you would like to know the best grocery store apples, I can tell you about them. If…Read more...

Objectively, wine is good.Read more...

Here’s another one of those small things you can knock out of the way before the year’s end: Organize your financial documents.

If you have an old hard drive or SSD lying around, or you just want to build your own external drive from scratch, this $9, 2.5" enclosure (with code XMASAK23) is one of the most affordable we’ve ever seen with UASP support, which allows for faster data transfer speeds when using an SSD.

Kathy Radigan’s first-born child is 20 years old, but she remembers the “baby blues” she had with him like it was yesterday.Read more...

This year in How I Work, we interviewed over 50 developers, designers, writers, podcasters, actors, and other successful people in business, non-profits, tech, the arts, and entertainment, discussing their work habits and career paths. Every one is excellent—we reach out to our favorite people and sift through…Read more...

Deadspin The Sad, Short Story Of The First Responder Bowl | Jezebel Queen With Golden Piano Seemingly Out of Touch | The Root Atlanta Decides Not to Impeach Mayor on Misdemeanor Macaroni Charges | The A.V. Club Holmes & Watson crack the case of the 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score | Splinter Trump Flees Political Chaos…Read more...

If you’re reflecting on 2018 and gearing up for the new year, setting a resolution or two might be your focus right now. But before you start thinking about how to improve your life starting in January, ask yourself: What small things can you get out of the way now?

Finding a great VPN service can be a challenging task—and that’s putting it mildly. It’s not hard to find any VPN service. There are plenty of apps that promise to encrypt your connection by shuffling it through a third-party server, causing your requests to appear as if they’re coming from said server (even if its…Read more...

There is much parental hand-wringing over the phenomenon that is Fortnite. It’s not just a social game of survival that kids can play for free from a slew of devices (computer, mobile phone, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch). Fortnite: Battle Royale is also getting a reputation for being somewhat addicting (…Read more...

iOS/MacOS: Apple is giving away six high-quality audiobooks of classic stories read by celebrities, free with no strings attached, playable on desktop and mobile. You can download and listen to Pride and Prejudice, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Secret Garden, The Time Machine, Frankenstein, and a small Disney…Read more...

Christmas may be over, but the holiday ceremonies are not yet complete: the day after you open all your gifts is the first day you have to send the bad ones back. Let the annual returning of the gifts begin!Read more...

A recent Facebook post from a childhood friend got my attention: “Anyone looking to get rid of legos?” I had just that day been assigned a story on how to recycle or pass on used LEGOs, so of course I immediately thought of one of my favorite words, which in this situation was most applicable: kismet. But beyond…Read more...

At the live recording for our podcast, The Upgrade, comedian Chris Gethard admitted to having taken toilet paper from a previous employer (in his words a “Manhattan Improv Theater”—try to guess which one).Read more...

What was the most timely hit of 2018? It’s either the 1975’s “Love It If We Made It” or Janelle Monae’s “Screwed,” right? For this year’s New Year’s Eve playlist, I collected some of the best party music of 2018, some evergreen NYE songs like “Auld Lang Syne” and Death Cab’s “The New Year,” and a few songs that just…Read more...

We teach our kids to ask for something “nicely,” with a please at the beginning and a thank you at the end. We teach them to be polite to neighbors and cashiers and restaurant servers. To hold open doors and say “excuse me” when they burp.Read more...

If you’re like many Americans, the recent swings of the stock market aren’t necessarily keeping you up at night—only around half of us are invested in the stock market at all, and of that, “the top 10 percent of wealth holders in the United States own an estimated 85 to 90 percent of stocks,” according to the …Read more...

As the year draws to a close and January 1 begins to loom in a slightly ominous fashion, you may find yourself examining the food choices you made in 2018. Obviously you should regret nothing, but if all this reflection leads to hankering for a salad or two, we have quite a few resources to make sure it’s the best…Read more...

Whether you’re a brand-new Spotify subscriber who was just gifted the service from a friend or family member, or you’re a longtime user who is always shocked by how much you’ve listened to when you get your annual recap, there’s one little setting in the Spotify desktop and mobile apps that audiophiles can’t seem to…Read more...

I can bench press a gray wolf, I think. (The last time I was at the gym, I did sets of 10 reps, so I went lighter, around a mature wombat). I can easily deadlift a black bear, maybe a baby elephant on a good day, but by the end of 2019 my goal is at least a male giant panda.

It’s that time of year again when you’re working your smartphone overtime attempting to keep up with all of the memories of holiday parties, family gatherings, and pets you’ve wrangled into festive attire. If you’re working with any of the latest Android phones, including the Google Pixel 3 or Samsung Note9, then one…Read more...

As sommelier and beverage director for the Standard Hotel’s two New York City locations, Ashley Santoro is responsible for one of the country’s most trendy wine and spirit lists. We talked to her about the work she does in the office, bar, and wine cellar—and what she’s been drinking lately.

If you didn’t find all the books you needed in Amazon’s Christmas Day book sale, they just put a whole bunch of new titles on sale to fill your new Kindle, tablet, or phone for the new year. The theme today is New York Times Bestsellers, and it features a great mix of novels and nonfiction, with enough variety that…Read more...

The NBA has five games happening on Christmas this year, kicking off with a 12pm ET game between the Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks and ending with a 10:30pm ET between the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz.

It’s Christmas, which means the majority of restaurants and stores are closed for the day. If you need to grab a meal or a (very) late-minute gift your choices are a bit limited. That said, you do have options. Here’s a rundown of some of the places we know will be up and running for the day:

This weekend The Wall Street Journal ran a story running down a number of different ways you can fix your family’s tech problems for free this holidays season. There are a ton of good ideas on the list, but one section that caught my attention was the section on privacy and security. My family is great at calling me…Read more...

Visiting family during the holidays often means doing a lot of things you don’t typically do at home. For me, one of those things is watching Netflix on my laptop. The room I’m staying in doesn’t have a television, and the living room is too central for me to watch my traditional hour of Netflix before bed without…Read more...

Despite the government shutdown, NORAD is still busy tracking Santa this year. The service, which has been tracking Santa’s Christmas Eve movements since the 50s, when its number was mistakingly given out as a Santa hotline.

There is only one thing to get excited about on Netflix this week and if it’s not your cup of tea, may I suggest Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video? Like the best Christmas present a streaming video service could ever give you, Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War arrives on December 25. It’s probable you’ve seen it, as it…Read more...

If you’re planning a trip for the New Year, you may want to consider flying back home on a Monday rather than a Sunday.

Removing the background in an image typically involves knowing how to use photo-editing software or enlisting the help of someone else who does. Now there’s another solution: using AI.

Around a year ago Apple admitted to slowing down the batteries in older iPhones, and it offered to replace the battery in all phones newer than an iPhone 6 for $29 — as long as you got that battery replacement by December 31st. That means time is running out.

Orphan Black on Blu-Ray, a cold brew coffee maker, and furniture and decor at Amazon are some of the best deals online today.

The revelation this past week that Facebook has been sharing what you do on the site with other companies like Microsoft and Amazon has led a number of us to start considering (perhaps not for the first time) deleting Facebook and other apps owned by the company like Instagram and WhatsApp.

From now until December 31, your children can call their favorite My Little Pony.

If you’re up late this weekend holiday shopping or driving to your next destination, 7-11 is offering a deal to keep you fueled up and ready to go: $.19 coffee.

The Root Referee With Racist Past Forces Black Student to Cut Dreadlocks or Forfeit Wrestling Match | Deadspin Dodgers Deal Yasiel Puig To Reds In Otherwise Bleak Multi-Player Salary Dump | The A.V. Club Cardi B’s new “Money” video is ludicrously unsafe for work | The Muse ‘You Can’t Help Thinking of Michael Scott’:…Read more...

The Basilisk, one of the newer entries in Razer’s gaming mouse lineup, has been my daily driver for the past few months. But even in such a short time, it’s become one of my favorite mice. Recently, it dawned on me why: the Basilisk blends aspects of my two favorite mice of all time, the Logitech MX Master and the …Read more...

The Nasdaq index, which includes major tech companies like Apple and Microsoft, fell into bear market territory at the close of the market Friday, a term that signifies a loss of 20 percent or more from its peak. The Wall Street Journal attributes the decline to a “bevy of concerns, from the Federal Reserve’s pace of…Read more...

You likely have financial plans and goals of your own for 2019, but if you’re married or partnered up, getting on the same page with your other half is one of the most important things you can do to get your finances on your chosen track.Read more...

Thanks to a Federal Communications Commission vote last week, wireless carriers now have more control over your text messages. If that sounds ominous, that’s because it is—so much so that now’s the perfect time to ditch regular ol’ text messaging altogether.Read more...