Life Hacks – Spoken Edition

You know the drill when it comes to airplane etiquette. Keep your bags stowed in your overhead bin, fasten your seatbelts, and practice some mindfulness after getting out of the way for yet another bathroom run. Sure, after takeoff you’ll be able to use your devices, but if you’ve only got your smartphone on you, or want to help your child watch a flick hands-free, watching a film with your neck arched downward for a few hours may become uncomfortable.

You know that thing you do where you ask your partner/friend/family member to remind you to do something later? Yeah, well now Google Home can actually do that, and unlike that person you always ask, it won’t forget. This week, Google Home is rolling out an update that will finally enable voice-activated reminders for the digital assistant. The anticipated feature is powered through the Google Assistant platform, which has been able to do reminders on Android phones for some time now.

Most of the Steelers sat out the national anthem on Sunday, after President Trump expressed an opinion on what players should do during the anthem. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said, “We’re not going to play politics.” That is, however, impossible. Everything is political, and it always has been. Politics is what the government does, and what opinions people have about what the government should do.

iOS 11 is lying to you. Sure, the operating system is full of new features, fixes, and a generally more pleasant aesthetic, but one change is rubbing me (and other battery-conscious users) the wrong way. The revamped Control Center’s actions when dealing with the disabling of wireless connectivity are misleading, telling users their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections are off when that isn’t the case.

Good news if getting to a Kohl’s is more convenient for you than getting to a shipping drop point: Starting in October, you may be able to bring your unpackaged Amazon returns to a Kohl’s location for free packaging and return shipping. The program is rolling out to 82 stores in Chicago and Los Angeles. There’s no charge for any of the services, regardless of the reason for return or lack of packaging, so you won’t have to hoard your boxes for 30 days just in case.

Things are… not great now. Hurricane season is clobbering the Caribbean, earthquakes are plaguing Mexico, the Pacific Northwest is on fire. Understandably, you want to help, and often the best way to help is a monetary donation to a relief organization. And it seems like the best thing to do is to earmark your funds for the specific emergency you’re responding to—after all, that’s why you’re donating.

Rejection is one of those things that we all have to deal with at some point in our lives. There’s always going to be women that don’t want to go on dates with you, promotions that you don’t get, or famous basketball players that don’t want to come visit your house because they think you’re kind of a douchebag.

Shouldn't you announce your goals, so friends can support you? Isn't it good networking to tell people about your upcoming projects? Doesn't the law of attraction mean you should state your intention, and visualize the goal is already yours? Nope. Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed. In 1933, W.

“Ahh, this is it.” It’s the sigh we all want to sigh on vacation. Full relaxation, total enjoyment, that pure vacationy feeling. But it may turn out that pursuing a vacation ideal—whether it’s a perfect sunset, pre-planned trip, or just the expected awe of seeing, say, the Grand Canyon in real life—is exactly how not to get the most out of the vacation time you have. In the New York Times, psychiatrist Richard A.

If you’ve installed iOS 11 on your iPad, then you’ve probably come face-to-face with the operating system’s new keyboard feature, Key Flicks. Basically, Apple has taken its regular keyboard and overlaid numbers and symbols on each letter. For instance, now the D key is also the $, and the S is also a #.

When you’re visiting a town for the first time, it can be pretty tough to get the lay of the land. Especially if you’re moving to a new place, it’s hard to tell whether one neighborhood would be better for you to live in than another, or whether you’re accidentally (or intentionally) renting in the most hipster neighborhood in town. Now, there’s an app for that. Or a website, actually.

Whenever you put your card into a gas pump or an ATM you run the risk of having your information skimmed. To some extent, skimming is one of those things you don’t realize you’re a victim of until long after it happens. In the past few months, I’ve had a number of friends discover that their credit card numbers were being used by identity thieves who presumably captured their credit card information while they were pumping gas or withdrawing money.

It’s awfully easy to get in touch with prominent people these days, isn’t it? A few clicks through social media or company bios, and you can fire off a message to your field’s newest rock star, the guy or gal who is creating and disrupting and re-inventing everything from buses to bodegas.

With iOS 11, Apple changed up how you activate the Night Mode on your phone. The company originally introduced Night Shift in iOS 9.3 as a way to make screens a little easier on the eyes at night (and help you get some sleep in the process. Now there are two options for your iPhone: That Night Shift Mode and a new ‘Smart Invert Colors’ mode that expands on an accessibility feature in iOS and makes for a pretty solid nighttime display option.

You might not want to upgrade to iOS 11 just yet, but you should update these top-shelf iOS apps. Siri can now control Any.do and Todoist (two of our favorite to-do apps), and Evernote. Gboard, Google’s iOS keyboard for closet Android fans, finally has a one-handed typing mode just like the Android version. Of course, in iOS 11, so does Apple’s default keyboard. Secure messaging app Signal (read our review) cleaned up 16 minor issues and finally added profile photos.