Life Hacks – Spoken Edition

At some point, publishers at a lot of the sites I frequent decided that it would be a good idea to start using autoplay videos. While I think their thought is that when the video starts playing I’ll somehow be drawn in by their captivating host and majestic background music, the result is often me getting frightened by the sudden blast of sound, fumbling around to figure out how to stop the video, and then cursing the site creator and vowing to never come to their site again.

Choosing between real and artificial Christmas trees largely comes down to personal preference: do you want that cozy pine smell and hellacious clean-up, or built-in lights with no personal touch but nary a needle on the floor? Personal preference aside, though, there’s someone else who probably cares: Mother Earth. Don’t fall into the assumption that cutting down trees for a few weeks of festivity is on par with harmful deforestation.

Nowadays there are a ton of different options to determine if you’re too drunk to get behind the wheel, but about if you’ve smoked too much weed? It can be dangerous to drive stoned. Now that more and more states are legalizing recreational marijuana, they’re also having to come up with ways to test whether or not a driver might not be sober enough to be on the streets. In Oregon, that comes in the form of a field sobriety test.

Your trash smells bad. If you get one of those airtight lidded cans, your trash only smells bad when you open it, releasing a wet rancid fog right into your face. The best fix is to separate your food waste and store it in the freezer. But unless you’re composting that food waste, that’s too much work. Instead—or also—add some essential oil. Apartment Therapy recommends soaking a cotton ball in an essential oil, then sliding it between the trash bag and the can.

Finding a job can be hard, no matter who you are or what your background is. If you spent time away from the traditional workforce serving in the armed forces, then finding that job can potentially be even more complicated. If you served in the military, then you’re entitled to a free year of LinkedIn Premium, which can hopefully make finding that perfect job a little easier.

A few years ago an ex-boyfriend of mine got married. Our breakup was amicable and we both stayed friends with a lot of the same people. That meant when it came time for his wedding weekend, my Facebook feed was flooded with pictures of his rehearsal dinner, wedding, and reception. Yes, I was happy for him, but not happy enough I wanted to see (literally) a thousand pictures of the festive event I wasn’t a part of.

If you’ve ever wanted to hit a button underneath your night stand that turns off all of your lights, locks your doors, and plays your favorite 12-hour playlist of box fan sounds so you can get to sleep, you should look into getting a Flic button. It’s a $35 button that connects to your smartphone and lets you trigger an unlimited number of automated actions, either on the web or in the real world.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-2 vote spearheaded by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Michael O’Rielly and Brendan Carr, repealed the Obama-era legislation deeming broadband internet a Title II utility.

Ever since Pandora Premium launched, fans of the service have been faced with a choice: stick with the free radio-style service or upgrade to à la carte streaming for $10 a month. Now, Pandora is offering free access to its premium tier—as long as you don’t mind watching a few ads first. The company announced on Thursday that non-paying listeners will be able to play specific songs, albums and playlists without paying.

My colleague Patrick Allan once explained how to avoid being a sore loser at competitive games. Let’s revisit his lesson in a higher-stakes context. Say, an election. Congratulate the Winner Right Away “A simple handshake or ‘well done’ completely shifts the spotlight to them,” says Allan. “That way, if you need to sulk, you can go do it on your own without drawing unwanted attention.

Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations, Lifehacker’s weekly dip into the pool of stoic wisdom, and a guide to using its waters to reflect on and improve your life. This week’s selection comes from Diogenes Laërtius, a biographer of the great Greek philosophers. He references a quote from Heraclitus about how we can’t always trust our own senses: What It Means We all suffer from the brain’s ability to trick us into believing things that aren’t true.

Google Trends just released its Year in Search 2017, including the top 10 “how to” searches. As it turns out, Lifehacker has answered nine out of ten. And that tenth one really doesn’t matter any more. How to make slime: We’ve got two recipes for you: the Nickelodeon original (vanilla pudding, applesauce, green food coloring, and oatmeal) and a homemade alternative (Paint, hot water, and a thickening agent).

Every December, as Earth passes through a debris-filled trail left by the 3200 Phaethon asteroid, we puny humans can get a glimpse of the burning debris, dust, and rocks that is the annual Geminid meteor shower. This year is no different, and all that detritus will provide a pretty dazzling light show tonight, according to NASA. The Geminid Shower, named after the constellation closest to its appearance, will be visible anytime between December 13 and December 14.

If you’re using an HP laptop, there’s a chance someone else can see everything you type. The company recently confirmed that a keylogger was installed on hundreds of its laptops after the security vulnerability was uncovered by independent researcher Michael Myng. What’s a Keylogger? If you’re not familiar with keyloggers, the name pretty much says it all. It describes a type of software or hardware add-on that tracks everything you do on your keyboard.

Bucking its minimalist trend of killing wishlists and killing desktop downloads, the iOS App Store added a feature: Developers can open up their apps for pre-orders, up to 90 days in advance. (The feature is also available on the Mac App Store.) Pre-orders are only available after the App Store has approved an app, and customers won’t be charged until they download the app. So this probably won’t lead to vaporware or scammy pre-sales.