#Lifehacks

[lifehacksthatwork]

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

[thatsbelievable]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Two decades ago, I was part of a group of nerds who got really interested in how each other managed to do what we did. The effort was kicked off by Danny O'Brien, who called it "Lifehacking" and I played a small role in getting that term popularized:

https://craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt

While we were all devoted to sharing tips and tricks from our own lives, many of us converged on an outside expert, David Allen, and his bestselling book "Getting Things Done" (GTD, to those in the know):

https://gettingthingsdone.com/

GTD is a collection of relatively simple tactics for coping with, prioritizing, and organizing the things you want to do. Many of the methods relate to organizing your own projects, using a handful of context-based to-do lists (e.g. a list of things to do at the office, at home, while waiting in line, etc). These lists consist of simple tasks. Those tasks are, in turn, derived from another list, of "projects" – things that require more than one task, which can be anything from planning dinner to writing a novel to helping your kid apply to university.

The point of all this list-making isn't to do everything on the lists. While these lists do help you remember what to do next, what they're really good for is deciding what not to do – at all. The promise of GTD is that it will help you consciously choose not to do some of the things you set out to accomplish. This is in contrast to how most of us operate: we have a bunch of things we want to do, and we end up doing the things that are easiest, or at top of mind, even if they're not the most important things.

GTD recognizes that you can be very "productive" (in the sense of getting many things done) and still not do the things that you really wanted to do. You know what this is like: you finish a Sunday with an organized sock-drawer, all your pennies neatly rolled, the trash-can in your car emptied…and no work at all on that novel you're hoping to write.

You can't do everything, but you can control what you don't do, rather than just defaulting into completing a string of trivial, meaningless tasks and leaving the big stuff on the sidelines. Organizing your own tasks and projects is a hugely powerful habit, and one that's made a world of difference to my personal and professional life.

But while good to-do lists can take you very far in life, they have a hard limit: other people. Almost every ambitious thing you want to do involves someone else's contribution. Even the most solitary of projects can be derailed if your tax accountant misses a key email and you end up getting audited or paying a huge penalty.

That's where the other kind of GTD list comes in: the list of things you're waiting for from other people. I used to be assiduous in maintaining this list, but then the pandemic struck and no one was meeting any of their commitments, and I just gave up on it, and never went back…until about a month ago. Returning to these lists (they're sometimes called "suspense files") made me realize how many of the problems – some hugely consequential – in my life could have been avoided if I'd just gone back to this habit earlier.

My suspense file is literally just some lines partway down a text file that lives on my desktop called todo.txt that has all my to-dos as well. Here's some sample entries from my suspense file:

WAITING EMAIL Sean about ENSHITTIIFCATION manuscript deadline 10/24/24 WAITING EMAIL Russ about missing royalty statement 10/12/24 WAITING EMAIL Alice about Christmas vacation hotel 10/8/24 10/20/24 WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

WAITING CALL LA County about mosquito abatement 10/25/24 WAITING CALL School attendance officer about London trip 10/18/24

WAITING MONEY EFF reimbusement for taxi to staff retreat $34.98 10/7/24

WAITING SHIPMENT New Neal Stephenson novel from Bookshop.org 10/23/24

This is as simple as things could possibly be! I literally just type "WAITING," then a space, then the category of thing I'm waiting for, then a few specifics, then the date. When I follow up on an item, I add the date of the followup to the end of the line. If I get some details that I might need to reference later (say, a tracking code for a shipment, or a date for an event I'm trying to organize), I'll add that, too, as it comes up. Creating a new entry on this list takes 10-25 seconds. When someone gets back to me, I just delete that line.

That is literally it.

Every day, or sometimes a couple of times a day, I will just run my eyes up and down this list and see if there's anything that's unreasonably overdue, and then I'll send a reminder or make a followup call. In the example above, you can see that I've been chasing Ted about Sacramento for months now (this is a fake entry – no plans to go to Sacto at the moment, sorry):

WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

So now I've emailed Ted four times. Maybe my email's going to his spam, and so I could try emailing a friend of Ted and ask them to check whether he's getting my messages. But maybe Ted's trying to send me a message here – he's just not interested in doing the event after all. Or maybe Ted is available, but he's so snowed under that he's in danger of fumbling it, and I need to bring in some help if I want it to happen.

All of these are possibilities, and the fact that I'm tracking this means that I now get to make an active decision: cancel the gig or double down on making sure it happens. Without this list, the gig would just die by default, forgotten by both of us. Maybe that's OK, but I can't tell you how many times I've run into someone who said, "Dammit, I just remembered I was supposed to email you about getting that thing done and I dropped the ball. Shit! I really was looking forward to that. Is it too late now?" Often it is too late. Even if it's not, the work of picking up the pieces and starting over is much more than just following through on the original plan.

Restarting my suspense file made me realize how many of the (often expensive or painful) fumbles I've had since the pandemic were the result of me not noticing that someone else hadn't gotten back to me. In essence, a suspense file is a way for me to manage other people's to-do lists.

Let me unpack that. By "managing other people's to-do lists," I don't mean that I'm deciding for other people what they will and won't do (that would be both weird and gross). I mean that I'm making sure that if someone else fails to do something we were planning together, it's because they decided not to do it, not because they forgot. As GTD teaches us, the real point of a to-do list isn't just helping us remember what to do – it's helping us choose what we're not going to do.

This is not an imposition, it's a kindness. The point of a suspense file isn't to nag others into living up to their commitments, it's to form a network of support among collaborators where we all help one another make those conscious choices about what we're not going to do, rather than having the stuff we really value slip away because we forgot about it.

I have frequent collaborators whom I know to be incapable of juggling too many things at once, and my suspense file has helped me hone my sense of when it would be appropriate to ask them if they want to do something together and when to leave them be. The suspense file helps me dial in how much I rely on each person in my life (relying on someone isn't the same as valuing them – and indeed, one way to value someone is to only rely on them for things they're able to do, rather than putting them in a position of feeling bad for failing you).

Lifehacking gets a bad rap, and justifiably so. Many of the tips that traffick as "lifehacks" are trivial or stupid or both. What's more, too much lifehacking can paint you into a corner where you've hacked any flexibility out of your life:

https://locusmag.com/2017/11/cory-doctorow-how-to-do-everything-lifehacking-considered-harmful/

But ever since Danny coined the term "lifehack," back in 2004, I've been cultivating daily habits that have let me live the life I wanted to live, accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish. I figured out how to turn daily writing into a habit and now I've written more than 30 books:

https://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

A daily habit of opening a huge, ever-tweaked collection of tabs has made me smarter about the news, helped me keep tabs on my friends, helped me find fraudsters who were trying to steal my identity, and ensured that all those Kickstarter rewards and other long-delayed, erratic shipments didn't slip through the cracks:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/25/today-in-tabs/#unfucked-rota

Daily habits are superpowers. Once something is a habit, you get it for free. GTD turns on decomposing big, daunting projects into bite-sized, trackable tasks. I have a bunch of spaces around the house – my office, my closet, the junk sheds down the side of the house, our tiki bar – that I used to clean out once or twice a year. Each one was all-day, sweaty, dirty job, and for most of the year, all of those spaces were a dusty, disorganized mess.

A month ago, I added a new daily task: spend five minutes cleaning one space. I did the bar first, and after two weeks, I'd taken down every tchotchke and bottle and polished it, reorganizing the undercounter spaces where things pile up:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=37996580417%40N01&sort=date-taken-desc&text=tiki+bar&view_all=1

Now I'm working through my office. Ever day, I'm dusting a bookshelf and combing through it for discards to stick in our Little Free Library. Takes less than five minutes most day, and I'll be done in about three weeks, when I'll move on to my closet, then the side of the house, and then back to the bar. A daily short break where I get away from my computer and make my living and working environments nicer is a wonderful habit to cultivate.

I'm 53 years old now. I was 33 when I started following Getting Things Done. In that time, I've gotten a lot done, but what's even more relevant is that I didn't get a ton of things done – things that I consciously chose not to abandon. Figuring out what you want to do, and then keeping it on track – in manageable, healthy, daily rhythms that bring along the other people you rely on – may not be the whole secret to a fulfilled life, but it's certainly a part of it.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo.txt

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Hey, can I give you my tumblr protip?

In these difficult times, I aggressively block keywords and tags to create a lush safespace where I can look at butts and gif sets of cartoon characters relatively free from worry. But if you filter a keyword, Tumblr will filter any occurance of that string of letters in any context. You could be missing so many posts about "ELONgated sTRUMPets gROWLING" just because you don't want to hear about the latest stupid thing some rich asshole said or did.

So, the trick is to also filter the inoccuous words. If tumblr says a post contains filtered keyword "Elon," scroll on by. But if it says it contains filtered keywords "Elon" and "melon" you can click through to your fruit related content.

This also means you don't have to add multiple iterations of a word! "Nazi" will block all mention of "nazis" and "nazism."

(this tip does not work for filtered tags, only for filtered keywords)

Remember, there is a difference between staying informed and doomscrolling. You're not burying your head in the sand if you choose to have tumblr be your respite. Get your news from reliable news sources and get your fanart of rouge the bat wider than she is tall, with tits to match, on tumblr dot com.

[positivelypositive]

🍄

a small reminder that...

...not every problem can be solved instantly.

...not every problem is real.

...not every problem is a roadblock.

some problems can be temporary. others can be based on our assumptions, while some can be a blessing in disguise.

take a deep breath. you've got this ✨

[lilliput-army]

Xユーザーのいくみ⛑️さん: 「まとめるとこうなります。 マークを付けるのは一例で、謎の置き石をしていたり、ゴミが捨てられてあったりなども下見済みの可能性があります。 https://t.co/MOGxUSBRRN」 / X

[madlori]

You can thank me later.

So I like getting into cool sheets at bedtime BUT I do not like my freezing toes, rubbing against each other in an attempt to speed up the warming-up process of my body heat in the sheets. And don't give me that "wear socks to bed" nonsense, that's just crazy talk.

THERE IS A SOLUTION.

I have a large, flat heating pad sort of like a small rug that gets warm. I use it to relax my shins sometimes. One night while my poor cold feet were trying to get warm fast, I was struck with INSPIRATION.

The next night I put my heating pad underneath my fitted sheet and turned it on low while I got ready for bed. When I got into bed...

PURE BLISS AND HEAVEN. Cool sheets but nice warm feets. Turns out the Victorians were really on to something with the putting hot water bottles or coal-heated bed warmers down at the foot of the bed.

Yes, they do make heated mattress pads. But I don't want the WHOLE BODY heated, that's too much. Just the feets. And yes, there ARE heated mattress pads that have zones, so you can heat just the foot of the bed. But they're like...$200. This heating pad was like thirty bucks. And it has auto shutoff, so it doesn't stay on all night (which might be dangerous).

I'm honestly kind of obsessed with this? I know it isn't new or revolutionary but it's been making my bedtime way nicer these past few weeks.

[autism-unfiltered]

More Life Hacks to Brighten Your Days (ASD)

I'm back with more life hacks that have made my days brighter. I hope they can do the same for you:

Noise-Canceling Headphones: If you're sensitive to noise, investing in a pair of noise-canceling headphones can be a game-changer. They can help you create a quiet, peaceful environment no matter where you are.

Color Coding: Color coding can be a great way to organize your thoughts, tasks, or belongings. It can make visual processing easier and add a fun, creative element to your day.

Weighted Blankets: Many people on the autism spectrum find weighted blankets comforting. They can help reduce anxiety and improve sleep.

Fidget Tools: Keep a fidget tool in your pocket for moments when you need to stim but want to be discreet. There are many types of fidget tools available, from spinners to sensory rings.

Digital Reminders: Use your phone or digital device to set reminders for tasks, appointments, or even self-care activities. This can help take the stress out of remembering everything.

Safe Space: Create a 'safe space' in your home where you can retreat when things get overwhelming. This could be filled with comforting items, like soft pillows, favorite books, or calming lights.

Self-Care Routine: Develop a self-care routine that you enjoy. This could include activities like drawing, listening to music, taking a bath, or anything else that helps you relax and recharge.

Remember, everyone is different, and what works for one person might not work for another. It's all about finding what works best for you. Feel free to share your own life hacks!

[lizardsfromspace]

Listen up, chucklefucks! The FRUGAL LIFEHACKER is here to teach yo' ass' how to stretch your food dollar, with ten tips anyone can use, unless you're some goddamn ROCKEFELLER or something.

Look for discarded sandwiches on benches. If they only have one bite taken out of them they're probably still good. Two, also. Three if they're small

Consider making a garden to grow your food yourself. Then again if you have space and money for a garden you've got to have Rockefeller money, and you shouldn't be reading this then

If you have a generic enough face you can get invited to a lot of dinners. Just let them call you whatever name they say you are and say you got amnesia after college

Go to a grocery store. Go behind a grocery store. Go to the dumpster. Root around in it. Find documents incriminating the night manager in a fraud related to vintage Pog sales. Blackmail him for treats

There's a building called a "food pantry". God, it's so disgusting that some rich asshole could have a whole building for a pantry. Back your van up to it in the middle of the night and "redistribute the wealth" into your pantry

See someone eating a sandwich, hamburger, or a hot-n-ready pizza from Little Caesar's? Well, ask yourself this: do they look like they need food more than you? If the answer is no, then lifehack their face a bit and take their lunch

Sometimes if you lifehack their face a bit too hard, you may end up with some...extra protein on your lunch. Bonus lunch! Take that, Rockefellers!

Hide in a clump of trees in a park and look for people walking a dog. Small dogs are the easiest, big dogs are the most rewarding but hardest to st...liberate from their captors. It's so disgusting how our society imprisons animals for our own vanity, we must rethink our relationship to animals. Anyway once you get far enough away, you eat the dog

Double lifehack: the bones will make a wonderful decoration for your home, or lair in the woods! But make sure there's no meat on them anymore, we aren't a goddamn Rockefeller

Dumbass animals sometimes get run over by cars. So here's what you do. You scrape the roadkill off the road, right? And you take it home with you. If you happen to have a state-of-the-art genetics lab at your house, you can just culture the cells of the roadkill and produce artificially grown meat ad nauseam. God, saving money on groceries is THAT EASY and nobody even TRIES.

[shabbyshoebox]

Did you know you can rotate Ford Pines in your mind for free

[learnearninfo]

The most delicious breakfast of the week! @uniqueideaa #ytshorts #inovativeideas #dragonball

[thatsbelievable]

[satans-little-helper33]

[robertazombie]

HeavyGlitchDoctor in drag! Just call them Dell Laptopp, Mother Russia and Mal Practice

(I got Medic's drag name from @ionlypostmymeemocs. Hope you don't mind me borrowing it!)

[susanomalis]

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; for we all are amateurs in being alive.

- we are all first timers

[lilliput-army]

Xユーザーのようせん｜お金＆お得マニアさん: 「カフェ難民はチェックです↓ 【コーヒーショップの選び方】脱スタバにもどうぞ https://t.co/2lwRnYtV15」 / X