Life Hacks – Spoken Edition

Wine has a huge gap between the highest and lowest prices, even at less expensive stores like Trader Joe’s or Costco. If you’re not a wine enthusiast, you might be wondering why there’s such a big gap. Here’s what really determines how much a bottle of wine costs. Most people don’t shell out big bucks for wine they drink everyday, and honestly if you’re not that into wine then you probably shouldn’t bother splurging on an expensive bottle.

With a little know-how, most phishing scams are pretty easy to detect. This one, on the other hand, is devilishly clever and just might dupe you if you’re not careful. The way this phish scam works is simple. Wordfence, who brought light to the scam, says the attacker creates an email address to disguise themselves as someone you know. Then they send you an email with an attachment, like a PDF or Word doc, that looks legitimate.

Hopefully, you’ll never be in a situation where you have to use these tips, but they might just come in handy to help you handle a dog attack. In this Business Insider video, a former Navy SEAL tells you what you need to know to protect yourself. First, be very clear that the dogis really about to attack you. Use a shirt, jacket, or a purse to draw the dog’s attention from other vital body parts.

The concept of The Paleo Diet, in its simplest form, is “don’t eat anything a caveman couldn’t eat”—as if they possessed some long-forgotten nutritional knowledge of what’s good to eat and what’s not. But a new study suggests that paleolithic people ate just about anything. If they had gotten the chance to dive-bomb a bag of Doritos, they would have.

Airlines are cramming more seats on planes, which means less legroom and narrower cushions. Last week, lawmakers proposed the Seat Egress in Air Travel (SEAT) Act. If passed, the FAA would have to come up with standards for airlines’ seat sizes. In the meantime, it helps to know what you can expect from airlines. In a statement, Rep. Steve Cohen (TN) explained that the average distance between rows of seats has dropped to about 31 inches from 35 inches in the 70s, before airline deregulation.

Phone call scams have become so common that most of us don’t bother even picking up when we don’t recognize the number. However, as we grow warier, scammers get savvier and find ways to get our attention. Inc.com lists some area codes you might want to watch out for. The scam is dubbed the “473 Scam.” The caller either lets the phone ring once, sends a distressing text, or leaves a pre-recorded message making the recipient believe someone is in danger.

I recently had to go through the heartbreaking process of saying goodbye to a pet. My cat, Rudy, was old and in pain. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but it was time to let her go. Although it was a sad experience, I was grateful she was able to stay at home for the process and that I was able to stay by her side. Years ago, a friend told me about an in-home euthanasia service in our area—I had no idea such a service existed.

If you’ve ever wondered if hanging upside down for too long can kill you, the answer is yes. Here’s what happens to your body if you don’t get it upright in time. In this video from the SciShow YouTube channel, Olivia Gordon explains the science of the upside down human body, and what can go wrong. When you go inverse, blood begins to rush to your head as soon as you flip over. Eventually, that can cause a blood vessel to rupture or trigger a brain hemorrhage.

Packing travel bags and luggage well is a skill. If you want to be good at it, you have to practice, just like anything else. When Bekah Defelice at Thrillist asked a bunch of soldiers, airmen, sailors, and other U.S. military personnel for packing tips, the most common suggestion was to practice your packing. Over and over. When you’re leaving for a trip, pack your bag, then unpack it completely, then repack it again a few times over.

Let’s face it: even though many of us are entitled to a certain amount of vacation time, we could get pushback from the boss, especially when there’s a lot going on in the office. Ramit Sethi shares a simple email script to help you “prime” your boss to say yes.

If airport security measures weren’t uncomfortable enough, TSA recently revealed they’re making pat down procedures a little more invasive. A spokesperson told Bloomberg, “I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved.

From BB creams to CC creams to powder, there are so many different types of foundation to choose from. If you don’t know where to start or you’re just looking for a new product, you might find Pigment File useful. It’s a searchable and filterable database of every foundation on the market. You can either browse by product or select different criteria that matter to you: brand, coverage, finish, skin type, SPF, and more. They even include a guide to each category here.

Some people will say that you shouldn’t rinse mushrooms because they absorb water and become difficult to cook. But it’s totally doable as long as you have a salad spinner and a few extra seconds to spare. As J. Kenji López-Alt at Serious Eats explains, you don’t have to spend a ton of time wiping down your mushrooms with a paper towel, or need a special mushroom brush. It’s fine to rinse them as long as you do it right.

Bridges are built to stand the test of time, but some bridges are designed better than others, or were built with longer lasting materials. If you’re wondering how safe the bridges in your area are, this web tool can tell you. The tool, from Denise Lu and Dan Keating at The Washington Post, covers every single bridge-covered county in the United States. Mouse over the map to find your county, then give it a click.

Where you choose to live is inevitably tied to your line of work, with the living expenses of different cities also factoring in to what sort of salary you can get. The burgeoning and varied field of STEM jobs is no exception when it comes to different locales offering different rates. Here are the best paying places for STEM jobs. SmartAsset analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that included 30,000 workers in STEM fields and referenced it against 53 metro areas in the U.S.