When you get your first office job, you learn a whole new language. Suddenly, you’re learning about your team’s “workflow,” being forced to declare if you have the “bandwidth” to take on a new responsibility, and forever “circling back” and “drilling down,” all in the name of achieving “learnings.” One piece of workplace jargon you may not have yet learned is the “single source of truth”—and it’s actually a helpful tool for staying organized. Here’s what a “single source of truth” is and why you should implement one in your (forgive me) workflow. 

What is a single source of truth?

When your boss refers to a single source of truth, they’re actually talking about a repository for all the information and resources related to your work. That’s really it: It can include anything you need for a specific project or your job altogether, like contracts, instructions, timelines, contact sheets, templates, reviews… the list goes on. 

It should be well-organized and accessible to everyone who has anything to do with a given project. Back in the day, it might have been a big old binder, but the modernized version likely involves cloud-based software. A Google Drive, for instance, is perfect for an SSOT. 

Using an SSOT is similar to the “action method” of productivity, which asks you to sort your tasks into action steps, references, and back-burners using a spreadsheet. The column dedicated to references contains information related to accomplishing your task and can be considered a small-scale SSOT. 

How do you use an SSOT? 

If you’re on a team, you can use software or a project-management tool like Google Drive, OneDrive, or SharePoint. The first document in there should be a list of everyone on the project or team, plus their contact details. Use this to make sure everyone on the list has access to the SSOT. It’s also helpful to have a naming scheme in place, so files are easy to identify as the folder fills up. Something like LastName_DocumentTitle_Date.extension works great. 

If it makes sense, give everyone editing access, so they can mark off what they’ve done or add resources as they become available. If there are too many team members or you want some oversight, keep editing permissions limited to managers. 

SSOTs eliminate confusion about who needs to do what and how they can go about it, plus they make it easier for team members to step up. For example, if someone is out sick, their duties and the tools they use to get their tasks taken care of are immediately available in the single source of truth. 

You can also use the SSOT plan for personal use, whether to track your own progress on a work project or something else, like the management of your home. Have a folder for contacts related to your kids’ activities, maintenance and cleaning professionals and tasks, or whatever else you need. This is helpful if you ever need to share details for some reason, like if you need to go out of town and have a friend watch your place.

As lofty as a “single source of truth” sounds, this is one of those corporate ideas that has real-world benefits and will actually make your life easier, giving you (forgive me again) more bandwidth for other things. 

Source: LifeHacker – Use a ‘Single Source of Truth’ to Be More Productive

Latin American Spanish on Rosetta Stone is on sale for $95.99 right now (reg. $299) with promo code SAVENOW through December 25. Rosetta Stone is the highly-trusted language learning platform used by top organizations like NASA, Calvin Klein, and TripAdvisor, and it helps you learn by engaging with interactive activities, hearing native speakers using real-world scenarios, and TruAccent speech-recognition technology that gives real-time feedback on your progress. It includes bite-sized lessons—as little as 10 minutes at a time— and the app works on most Macs, PCs, tablets, and phones (though, if you need, you should check that your operating system works with the program). 

The sale comes with a lifetime subscription to learn Latin American Spanish with Rosetta Stone for $95.99 right now (reg. $299) with the promo code SAVENOW until December 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

There’s a science and art to picking a starting word when you play Wordle. One computer analysis has suggested that CRANE is the best starter; another landed on SALET. But the New York Times has recently done its own analysis of what people actually choose for starter words, and the situation is dire: ADIEU is the most popular starter, yet the least efficient.

To be clear: it’s not the worst word you could play, just the worst out of the 30 most popular starters. The top five, in terms of popularity, are ADIEU, STARE, SLATE, AUDIO, and RAISE. 

But if you take the top 30 and rank them by how well they work, the top five are SLATE, CRANE, LEAST, STARE, and RAISE. My personal favorite, ARISE, is seventh on the list.

Should a Wordle starter have a lot of vowels?

I’m going to teach the controversy here. The argument in favor of ADIEU is that it contains four vowels, and you know the solution will have to contain some vowels. Thus, knocking out four of them in your first guess is pretty smart. (O and the sometimes-vowel Y are the only ones not included.)

But there’s an argument to be made that vowels don’t give you much information, in the data-science sense of narrowing down possibilities. So there’s an A in the solution word somewhere–how much does it help to know that? 

Another strategy is to go with a consonant-heavy word at first, and worry about the vowels later. According to one Wordle expert, “there are only five [vowels], and it’s almost never going to be a U.”

My own approach splits the difference: I think about my starters as a pair. With ARISE and TOUCH, I get intel on all five vowels and five of the most common consonants. If you play ADIEU, I think you need to be prepared to follow it up with THORN. 

Don’t forget about the “sometimes” vowel, Y

Another thing the NYT learned from their analysis is that solution words that contain a Y tend to be harder to solve. 

Y flies under the radar since it’s an end-of-the-alphabet letter. The tendency is to think it must be as rare as X and Z. But Y is fairly common, showing up in words like FUNNY and JAZZY (JAZZY being the hardest word that appeared this year). Words that end in Y also often have a double letter–like the N and Z in those examples–so make sure to consider those as you’re narrowing down the possibilities.

You may recall from grade school that the vowels are “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.” (You may even have learned “…and sometimes Y and W.”) That’s because Y really can stand on its own as a vowel: the ending Y in FUNNY is an example: U is the vowel for the first syllable, and Y is the vowel for the second. There are also words that contain a Y as their only vowel, like GLYPH, NYMPH, and TRYST.

So if you’re working on a Wordle and you don’t seem to have enough vowels to make a word, stick a Y in there somewhere–preferably at the end. LANKY or HORNY might be a good pick for when you’re stumped.

Source: LifeHacker – Why ‘ADIEU’ Is a Terrible Wordle Starter, According to the New York Times

If there’s one holiday tradition you can count on in our ever-changing world, it’s that by the end of every year, you’re going to see a commercial for a car with a giant car-sized bow on top of it. While I’ve never personally been gifted a car with a giant car-sized bow (and feel free to change that for me), it’s true that now is one of the best time to go car shopping. Many automakers offer sales and financing deals on cars right now to help push them off the lot as the new model year cars roll in. If you’re in the market for a new or used car, this time of year can be a great time to buy for added savings, but only with the right plan. Arm yourself with these buying tips when car shopping over the holidays.

Tips to buy a car during the holidays

Time your purchase right

Aim to purchase near the very end of December, as salespeople scramble to meet monthly quotas and annual sales goals before the year concludes. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are excellent times to get the best offers. Model year-end clearance sales will also net steep discounts—just be sure you’re comfortable buying the prior year’s model if going this route.

Get a head start at home

Research is your best friend. By the time you arrive at the dealership, you should already know the following:

• Your budget

• Whether you’re leasing or buying (Although you should probably buy, not lease.)

• Your top choice (plus two back-up models)

Research market prices for vehicles using price-comparison sites like Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book. Gauge the fair market value of the make and model you’re interested in.

In terms of payment, the gold standard is to pay for a car in cash and in full, but that’s not a realistic possibility for all buyers. Instead, opt to get pre-approved for an auto loan from your bank or credit union and compare the offer to dealer financing. Your credit score plays a major role in determining your interest rate and whether you’ll get approved. Before applying for a loan, check your credit score so you know where you stand. If it’s low, here are ways to boost it.

Another holiday-specific tip is to look at year-end inventory on last year’s models. As the 2024 models come in, dealers will be looking to offload 2023 and even 2022 models still sitting on the lot, giving you negotiation power.

Arrive informed about the deals

Look out for holiday-exclusive pricing packages and cut preferential financing rates. Monitor sales highlights and fine print exclusions on manufacturer and dealer websites. Check to see if manufacturer financing or customer rebates are available for the cars you’re considering. Keep in mind that some holiday-related manufacturer incentives might actually be in place before the holiday weekend and may extend past it.

Be decisive

Time to put all your research to use. Cars are hot commodities, so be ready to pull the trigger at the dealership. You should mention any competing offers you’ve received to use as leverage, even if they aren’t an exact apples-to-apples comparison. Then again, the old days of walking away as a negotiating tactic are over for the time being—by the time you come back, your car will most likely have been sold.

One area to be flexible: Car color and trim options. Opting for colors/options that aren’t as popular can save you money as the dealer may be trying harder to move those vehicles.

If you’re trading in your existing vehicle, its age or mileage will determine its baseline value regardless of whether it’s the holidays or not. But you gain leverage negotiating the purchase price for the new vehicle during peak sale promos. Highlight applicable retail rebates and reference year-end volume goals salespeople are striving towards when pressing for the lowest overall price. Review which dealership fees you can and cannot avoid.

The festive chill in the December air doesn’t have to dampen big-ticket purchases—with the right mindset, you can unwrap a sweet new car deal this holiday season.

Source: LifeHacker – How to Get the Best Price on a Car During the Holidays

For many of us, extensions are an essential part of the web browsing experience. If you use Firefox on your Mac or PC, you might not dare opening a URL without having uBlock Origin or Dark Reader installed.

However, Firefox on mobile has always been a different story. While Mozilla’s “add-ons” are readily available on the desktop version of the browser, Android and iOS users have had to go without. That wasn’t always the case on Android. Mozilla removed extension support back in 2020, and users have been asking for them back ever since (and rightfully so). Finally, that’s changing—at least on the Android side of things.

Extensions are back on Firefox for Android

Mozilla announced last week that not only would Firefox for Android start supporting extensions, it would do so with support for over 450 add-ons. Many of these extensions are tried and true utilities that Firefox desktop users have enjoyed for years. uBlock Origin, for example, works out of the gate, so you can block ads and other intrusive elements while browsing with Firefox on both your smartphone and PC, as does the Dark Reader, an extension for giving all web pages a dark theme—even when they don’t have it themselves.

Mozilla also recommended three extensions in its announcement to get you started: Midnight Lizard, which adds customized color schemes for websites; Dark Background and Light Text, which, unsurprisingly, makes all sites have a dark background with light text; and Worldwide Radio, which lets you tune into radio stations all over the globe.

You can find a full list of Android-supported Firefox extensions from Mozilla’s add-ons site here. If you’re overwhelmed by the literal hundreds of options to choose from, Mozilla has a section of 22 recommended extensions you might find useful. You might also like the trending section, to see what extensions Firefox for Android users are installing, from Automatic AdSkipper to Reddit Annoyances.

Source: LifeHacker – Firefox for Android Finally Has Support for Extensions Again

If you realized you’re still a few gifts short on your Christmas gift list, don’t worry. There’s still time to get gifts under the tree and save yourself some money, especially if you want to gift someone a pair of headphones or earbuds. With ongoing deals from the likes of Sony, JBL, Beats, and others, you’re just a few clicks away from getting a great deal on a gift they’ll love for years.

Best noise-canceling headphone deals

If you know someone who works from home or goes to the gym and would like to tune out the noise around them, a good pair of active noise-canceling (ANC) headphones or earbuds would be great for them.

• Headphones: If you think the person on your list prefers headphones over earbuds, the Sony WH-1000XM4 are about as good a choice as you can make. They’re currently going for their lowest price at $228 ($348), according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history. You can read more about these great headphones from my earlier post.

• Earbuds: Earbuds are better for those on the go. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, with active noise-canceling, are currently going for $199 (originally $279). These Bose earbuds are full of features, like swapping seamlessly between the last seven paired devices, but their noise-canceling technology is what makes them stand out. This is also the lowest price these earbuds have been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history. You can read the full PCMag review here.

Best headphones for long battery life

Long battery life on a pair of headphones is essential for people who spend long days on campus or at work. 30 hours is typically the standard for what counts as “long battery life,” but you can find many that last longer. If you have someone on your list who appreciates a gadget that will last a long time between charges, these headphones will impress them.

• Headphones: The JBL Live 660NC are over-ear noise-canceling headphones that offer a surprising 50 hours of playtime with ANC turned off and up to 40 hours with ANC on. They also charge pretty quickly, with a 10-minute charge giving them another four hours of playtime. They also have a feature called Ambient Aware, which lets in sounds from their surroundings, allowing the wearer to have a conversation without taking their headphones off. You can get the JBL Live 660NC for $99.95 (originally $199.95) from Amazon. This is the second-lowest price they’ve ever been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history.

• Earbuds: If the person on your list prefers earbuds, the JBL Endurance Peak 3 fits the bill as a long-lasting option with 50 hours of nonstop playtime. You get 10 hours from the headphones and 40 hours from the charging case, with a 10-minute charge giving you an hour of playtime. You can get them for $79.95 (originally $99.95), which is the second cheapest price since their release.

Beats headphone sale

Beats is also having a great sale on their headphones through Amazon, and they all arrive before Christmas. One of the best deals is for the Beats Solo3 headphones, which are currently $99.99 (originally $199.95). This matches their Black Friday price, which is the cheapest they’ve ever been, according to Camelcamelcamel’s price history. These headphones give you up to 40 hours of listening time with fast charging (three hours of playtime with a five-minute charge) and have a microphone so you can take calls. You can read the full Beats Solo3 PCMag review here.

Source: LifeHacker – The Best Sales on Headphones That Will Arrive in Time for Christmas

Some appliances are more or less necessary to survival these days, like a refrigerator. Others, like dishwashers or laundry machines, save us a lot of time and personal labor. These appliances can be a significant investment in terms of money, but the time and effort they save is kind of priceless.

If there was just one initial cost to an appliance and you were set for life, that would be great. Unfortunately, like everything else in this world, appliances have a useful life span and eventually break down. And then you go through the rite of passage known as Finding Out How Much Appliance Repairs Cost, which is a number economists have defined as a lot. If your hair turns white when you get a repair quote on an appliance, don’t despair: There’s a much cheaper option for many appliance repairs.

Why repairs can be so expensive

What’s frustrating about repairing an appliance is that it’s essentially paying money to get back to zero, the situation you were in yesterday when your dishwasher wasn’t blinking an inscrutable error code and making a weird grinding noise. And the money you’re paying can be significant: The average cost to repair a major appliance like a dishwasher or a clothes dryer is about $175, and some appliances like an oven can cost as much as $500—which means the repair can cost as much as a new unit.

There are many reasons for these costs. Companies have to manufacture and warehouse replacement parts for a long, long time after introducing an appliance to the market, and that costs money. And the older an appliance gets, the harder it can be to find those parts, making them even more expensive. And then there’s labor, which averages between $50 and $150 an hour. That means that with some repairs, you’re already going to be $300 in the hole without even paying for a replacement part.

With some appliance parts, like small motors or mechanical items, your only option will be a repair professional or a replacement model. But many modern appliances malfunction because of failed control boards—essentially a circuit board that runs the mechanical bits of the appliance. The control board is kind of your appliance’s brain, and it can be one of the most expensive parts to replace. If you’re getting an error code on a display, it’s often a control board problem. And you can get control boards repaired through the mail—often for less than $100.

How to mail in the control board

Step one will be to identify the specific control board you need repaired, so you’ll need to know the model number of your appliance. If you kept the manual, you’re golden. If you didn’t, or inherited the appliance, there are some typical locations where model numbers are located. Home Depot’s appliance repair center can help you locate the model number if you’re not sure.

Once you have the model number, you can use Home Depot’s site or a site like PartSelect to look up the precise part number of your control board, then go to a mail-in repair site like Electronic Restore, Circuit Board Medics, or FixYourBoard.com to check on availability and price. Typically, repairs cost a flat fee between $70 and $100, plus shipping, so this can turn out to be a lot cheaper than hiring a professional.

Of course, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Handiness. These sorts of repairs require you to be handy enough to identify the part you’re looking for, remove it from your appliance, and then put it back. Home Depot’s Repair Clinic can be a great resource for this, but if you’re not comfortable doing this kind of stuff you’re better off hiring a pro despite the extra cost. There are also plenty of videos out there that will show you how to remove a control board from various appliances.

• Certainty. Be sure to diagnose the problem correctly. Control board problems tend to show up with error codes on display panels or blinking lights on the appliance. If there appears to be a physical problem with the appliance—no gas to the burners in a stove, for example, or a dishwasher that runs but doesn’t drain properly—it’s probably not the control board that needs fixing.

• No guarantees. The repair sites don’t make any wild promises of success; you might spend $100 on shipping them a control board only to be informed it can’t be repaired.

Keep in mind that if you’re handy enough to pull a control board from your appliance, you’re probably handy enough to replace other parts on your own. You can order parts from PartSelect, for example, for a relatively low cost compared to a repair call.

Source: LifeHacker – There Might Be a Cheaper Fix to Your Expensive Appliance Repair

AirTags might seem a bit like magic. They’re tiny, fit nicely in backpacks and on keychains, and they can somehow identify where your most important stuff is at all times. Of course, that also might make them seem dangerous, as it appears all too easy for someone to slip an AirTag into your bag or car to track your whereabouts. AirTags are pretty safe to use these days, though: They’re simple trackers that rely on clever tech from Apple to work privately and securely. And if anyone decides to abuse AirTags for nefarious reasons, there are built-in tools to thwart their attempts.

What is an AirTag?

An AirTag is a simple tracker based on Bluetooth, UWB (ultra-wideband), and NFC. It looks like a thick coin, and can be used to track pretty much any object you can attach it to. You can keep it in your backpack, wallet, luggage, pet’s collar, on your Apple TV remote, or with any object you lose frequently. Some have effectively used AirTags to track checked-in luggage when flying. People also use AirTags to check in on their kids—however they’re not always effective for real-time tracking. 

How do AirTags actually work?

AirTags don’t have a GPS chip. Instead, they send out Bluetooth signals that can be received by nearby devices that are on Apple’s Find My network. This includes any device signed in to iCloud, such as an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. They can be any device on the Find My network, not just yours, which is why AirTags can be so useful: Anyone’s connected Apple device becomes a beacon for your AirTag. Once those devices connect to the internet, they send an update about your AirTag’s location, which allows you to locate your tagged item. AirTags are useless if they’re in a zone with no network or with no connected device nearby. 

You don’t just have to rely on this Bluetooth tracking technology to find your AirTag, either. If you’re in the vicinity of your device, you can go to the Find My app on your Apple device, tap your AirTag, and use Precision Finding to locate it. This works by using ultra-wideband technology to point you in the direction of the tag. Literally: Find My will direct you exactly where to go to find your AirTag, complete with haptic vibrations to note when you’re getting close.

How much are AirTags?

Apple’s AirTags are $29.99 a pop, but you can get a 4-pack for $99.99 if you want to save a bit of money. You can also wait for sales, such as the one on Black Friday, to get even better deals on AirTags.

Products to consider:

• AirTag: $29.99 (currently on sale for $23.99)

• AirTag (4-pack): $99.99 (currently $78.20 used on Amazon)

• AirTag accessories (various prices)

How long do AirTags last?

An AirTag’s battery lasts up to a year; when the battery is close to running out, you’ll get a notification from the Find My app on your iPhone. You can easily replace the battery, too, as Apple uses the affordable standard 3V CR2032 lithium coin battery.

AirTags and privacy

Apple says the entire process of finding an AirTag is anonymous and encrypted to preserve your privacy. Apple doesn’t know which devices relay your location, or where your AirTag is. The AirTag doesn’t store location data or a list of places you’ve been to, either, and the company claims that it doesn’t impact your battery life or data usage. 

You can share the location of your AirTag with other people, even if they’re not a part of your iCloud family. This could help with situations where multiple people need to keep an eye on a particular AirTag, such as two owners of a tagged pet.

But let’s discuss the dangers of AirTags: If someone decides to use an AirTag to track your movements, there’s a built-in safety feature to help: When an AirTag is separated from its owner, and finds itself within range of your iPhone or Android phone, your device will warn you an unknown AirTag is near you. You’ll be able to ping the tracker if you don’t recognize it, and deal with it accordingly.

AirTags accessories and engraving

Although AirTags are pretty easy to place anywhere, there are a few use cases where accessories can make things better. For example, you could use an AirTag keychain or holder to make it easier to track keys or other objects. You can also buy AirTags accessories directly from Apple. If you buy your AirTags through Apple, you can also engrave them with up to four characters. 

Source: LifeHacker – Here’s How Apple AirTags Actually Work

Air travel remains the fastest and most efficient way to get anywhere—which is unfortunate, because the airlines continue to make the experience worse. Hidden fees, smaller seats, less leg room, annoying people, and baggage restrictions all conspire to make flying commercial an increasingly miserable experience. The decline of perks and service exacerbates this: Where once you actually got a free meal when you flew, these days you’re often lucky to have the opportunity to pay for a snack.

But the, maybe the lack of a meal isn’t so bad: Airplane food is notoriously terrible. There are reasons for that—the air pressure, low humidity, and noise inside the cabin robs our taste buds, and airplane food is typically prepared elsewhere and reheated on the plane, which is not an ideal scenario for great food. But if you plan to eat a meal on your next flight, you can up your game pretty significantly and better your chances of actually enjoying your food by using one of these four tips.

Instant upgrades

You can, of course, eat before you board, or bring food onto the plane. But if you don’t want to blow your budget on expensive airport fare, remember one thing: Flight attendants are generally happy to bring you hot water.

What does that mean? It means you can bring instant noodles or instant oatmeal and instantly have a much better meal option. Making instant noodles and then adding sauces or butter, plus the proteins, veggies, or other parts of your complimentary meal turns a dubious slab of microwaved … stuff into a far more satisfying meal. Similarly, getting a fruit option as your meal and then mixing it into hot oatmeal will give you a filling, happy breakfast instead of a greasy, unfortunate one.

One caveat: The water on your plane may not be the cleanest in the world. If you’d never order coffee on a plane because you’re dubious about the water situation, skip this one—or add your own water first and ask if the ramen can be microwaved.

Go spicy & saucy

Because our taste buds are sandbagged on a plane, most of the meals we’re served will taste bland and probably overly salty (because they’re packed with preservatives, and because the airlines know how bland the food is). One way to improve your airline meal experience is to order the spiciest stuff you can spot. Sometimes your choices are limited, but most airlines make an effort to accommodate religious and dietary restrictions, so check to see if you can pre-order a Hindu meal option. Anyone can order it, and you’re not stealing a meal from anyone. The benefit is the spices: These meals tend to use more of them, which counteracts the tastebud-suppressing effects of cabin pressure and offers a more satisfying experience.

Also, if you have a choice of meals, always choose the sauciest option. Planes are dry, dry places and those meals get cooked to death in order to ensure they won’t make anyone sick, so the more sauce you have, the less likely your meal will remind you of eating cardboard.

BYO condiments

As an airline passenger, you have a superpower: You can bring your own condiments. You know your meal is going to be disappointing—it’s airline food. Of course it’s going to be disappointing. But! You can liven it up with hot sauce, your own salad dressing, spicy mayo or gourmet mustard, homemade spreads—whatever you can cram into your carry-on in a security-appropriate container. There are people in this world who bring hot sauce to every single meal of their lives for a reason—it can transform the blandest, most boring hunk of chicken into a somewhat satisfying meal pretty much instantly. And any high-quality or homemade condiment or spread will allow you to deconstruct a meal and reconstruct it as something much better.

Pre-order

Finally, don’t just sit there like a sucker and wait to see what the airplane gods are going to serve you. Pre-order your meals like a smart person. Most airlines offer a range of options for pre-ordering special meals like vegan or vegetarian meals (or, see above re: the Hindu meal option), and you should do so for two basic reasons:

1. Speed. Pre-ordered meals tend to come out before the other meals, which means yours will arrive hot and steaming instead of lukewarm and smashed. A vegetarian meal will be lighter and less disastrous to your stomach and digestive system. And many people (including airline professionals) believe the “niche” meals are made in smaller batches, and thus are higher quality.

2. Planning. By pre-ordering your meal, you’ll know what you’re eating and you can bring condiments to match and plan the rest of your day’s meals.

Source: LifeHacker – Four Tricks for Getting Actually Decent Airplane Meals

Hulu’s January lineup includes murder mysteries, reality game shows (real and fictional), and a handful of hard-hitting documentaries.

One highlight is the Hulu original series Death and Other Details (Jan. 16) starring Violett Beane as a suspect in a locked-room murder mystery on a luxury cruise ship alongside Mandy Patinkin as detective Rufus Cotesworth.

Another high-profile title is Self Reliance (Jan. 12), a comedic thriller written and directed by New Girl‘s Jake Johnson, who also stars in the film alongside Anna Kendrick and Andy Samberg (as himself). Johnson’s character gets wrapped up in a reality game in which he has to outrun assassins trying to kill him.

Candy canes. Gingerbread houses. And so many cookies. The holidays are that time of year when we exhaust our taste buds and indulge our sweet tooth. Depending on your relationship with food, this is either the most wonderful season of all—or, if you’re on a diet, a minefield of guilt.

“We want to help people understand that diets are not going to be something that will make them happy,” says Elyse Resch, registered dietician, nutrition therapist, and co-author of Intuitive Eating. “To go into the holiday season being on a diet, there’s clearly going to be some sort of rebellion from it.”

If you’re in the group that feels guilt and shame over holiday indulgences, your feelings over food may be transferred to your children. It could lead them to develop their own complex and unhealthy relationship with food. We’ll share how to instill trust in your kids regarding food served at holiday celebrations and the unintended consequences of restricting their diet. 

What is intuitive eating?

To understand how parents and kids can have a better relationship with food, we need to explain the concept of intuitive eating. Intuitive eating means trusting your body to choose foods that make you feel your best. It’s a philosophy that directly opposes diets that restrict or ban certain foods entirely. 

Resch describes the idea as akin to feeding a baby. Whether receiving nourishment from the breast or bottle, newborns intuitively know when they are hungry and stop when their stomachs are full. As we age, the signals we were attuned to as babies around food weaken, often because diet culture can change how we look at food. It causes us not to honor our hunger or deprive ourselves of something we want, thus making that thing more desirable. 

“Intuitive eating is about helping people get back in touch with what we knew when we were born,” says Resch.

Don’t tell kids “just one cookie”

The concept that children (and adults, for that matter) want what they can’t have also applies to food. It also sends the wrong message about what we eat.

For example, if you tell your child they can only have one cookie at the family holiday party, they will probably want more. It becomes much more exciting to eat than anything else placed before them on the table. Then they’ll feel ashamed that they want more than one cookie. 

“You’re saying, ‘I can’t trust you to know what you need,'” says Resch. “You’re developing shame in a child when you are restricting what they’re allowed to have. You are not developing a sense that they can just tune into themselves.”

That lack of trust can also be felt when children are told to clean their plates even though they say they are done. We want to enjoy food, and when children are burdened with finishing a meal, they learn not to trust when their stomach is full, making them feel unsatisfied.

They’re not going to eat only desserts

Most parents assume their children will eat nothing but candy and pie at the holiday family gathering if left to their own devices. But if we’re supporting a positive relationship with food from the start, they’ll pick what is most interesting to them instead of hanging out exclusively at the dessert table.

While Resch concedes that not every parent can provide their family with a wide variety of foods, starting a favorable association with what your kids eat can begins by sitting down together and enjoying a meal whenever you can. Children will want to eat what you find interesting, which should hold when they approach the spread at the potluck.

“When kids are allowed to pick what they like and not eat what they don’t like, they’re not only going to eat candy because the other foods will look so interesting,” says Resch.

Set the example

When adults overindulge, they usually say something like: “I better watch it tomorrow.” If they stick to their diet, they might say something like, “I’m that much closer to meeting my target weight.” Statements like these can start to erode our relationship with food. Eating provides nourishment, and talking about it negatively doesn’t send a positive message to our children. 

As a rule, parents working on their relationship with food shouldn’t negatively talk about their or their children’s bodies. Kids will only learn from that example that parents are upset with themselves over what they eat and should control what they consume. 

“I want to give parents some compassion,” says Resch. “They’re worried that they’re going to be criticized and not good parents if they’re not controlling their children’s eating.”

Don’t worry about what other family members think

Everyone has different ideas about food, so if you’re worried that the grandparents will comment about what your child is eating, let them know ahead of time how things work in your home and that they should not make comments about food. 

However, you can’t control what anyone does, so be frank with children and let them know they can ignore any comments from another family member about what they’re eating.

“You need to be able to tell them that not everybody’s home works like yours,” says Resch.

When asked if parents or children should make New Year’s resolutions about diet, Resch replies with two words: “Absolutely not.”

Source: LifeHacker – How Restricting Your Kid’s Holiday Foods Can Backfire

Last week, I saw a hack on social media for making your home smell nice that was quite bad. It involved putting essential oils in your vacuum, which you should never do. I recommended a few other home-scenting tips instead, but all of those focused on neutralizing odors, not introducing pleasant ones to the environment. This week, however, social media delivered me a new suggestion for making any room smell nice—and this one won’t damage vacuums (or anything else). It involves hiding little extract-scented pads around your home. 

Use extracts to easily scent your home

First of all, the video I saw was this one, from Kelly the Cleaning Girl, a TikTokker who loves to clean and wear pink. I trusted her instantly when she said that dabbing some extract on a furniture pad and hiding it in your house will make the place smell nice, but I still had some concerns and wanted to test it out. 

My first concern was, “What is a furniture pad?” I went to Target, where I found Scotch felt pads, which I realized have adhesive backing and are meant to be stuck under chair legs to stop them from scratching hardwood flooring. (I have rugs; I didn’t know!) The ones I got aren’t on Target’s site, but they’re comparable to this 32-pack for $4.97. 

My second concern was, “Won’t extract attract bugs?” I checked with Lifehacker’s baking guru, Allie Reinmann, and she said that while extracts are used in food, they themselves have too much alcohol to be considered foodstuffs. They have, she said, “no sugar or anything for bacteria to grow,” so I was sold. She did wonder about how long the smell would last, since the extract would likely evaporate quickly, but I assured her I would find out. I got regular old McCormick pure vanilla extract ($8.39 for two ounces). 

Then I got to work. 

How to covertly scent your home

I got out a sheet of six pads and set it on the counter. I decided to put a little extract on each pad while they were still affixed to the backing sheet, which turned out to be much more clever than I realized. The extract came rushing out of the bottle and got all over the sheet, so I had to kind of move it around so it would touch all the pads. Some pads had more extract and others had less. I thought that was a good experiment. I noticed they looked a little shiny, but were pretty quickly absorbing the liquid, so I let them sit for about five minutes so it could all sink in. Then I took one of the lightly dampened pads and stuck it under the countertop. 

It smelled nice, like vanilla, right away, but I wondered how long it would last. I put the sheet containing the five remaining pads in another room, to see if the smell would be more intense—and long-lasting—in there. 

It’s been about four hours since I did it, but the vanilla smell is still evident in both rooms. A huge success. 

The nice thing about this method is that these pads are already sticky, so you can hide them anywhere, unlike other kinds of air fresheners. The technique is sustainable, too, since you won’t need to buy new pads very often. You can try with essential oils, if you’d like—they would likely last longer, as oil isn’t going to evaporate the way an alcohol-based extract would. That said, for me, the extract worked just fine. 

Source: LifeHacker – This Is the Easiest Way to Make Your Home Smell Incredible

If you’re feeling squeezed by the inflation-addled cost of holiday shopping this year, but still want to buy gifts for family and friends, your hard-earned credit card rewards can come in handy.

As The Points Guy and others point out, you almost always get the best value out of your rewards when you spend them on travel, such as airfare and hotel bookings, versus redeeming points and miles for cash back or non-travel purchases. However, if you’re looking for ways to reduce the out-of-pocket cost of presents this holiday season (and don’t have an imminent travel-related use for your rewards), consider strategically spending some of those points and miles on the people you care about.

Gift your points and miles

One way to get great value out of your credit card rewards is to gift them to someone else to use for travel. This will usually require you to transfer your points to a partner airline or hotel loyalty program before you can pass them on to someone else (an exception being Chase Ultimate Rewards members in the same household). Some airlines will charge a miles transfer fee, while most hotels allow points transfers to another member at no cost.

To get around fees and transfer limits, you could offer to book travel for the recipient using your rewards—just don’t do so before confirming they’re on board.

Redeem points for cash or statement credits

Some rewards programs allow you to pay yourself back with your points—either by redeeming them for a statement credit or cash rewards, such as a direct deposit or mailed check. This can help offset the cost of gifts you plan to or have already purchased. Your mileage may vary, however: Chase Ultimate Rewards typically offers the best per-point value through its Pay Yourself Back statement credit (1–1.5 cents per point redeemed), while American Express Membership Rewards allows just 0.6 cents per point spent on statement credit.

Shop with points at specific retailers

Another non-travel redemption option is spending credit card rewards on merchandise from retailers like Amazon, Apple, Walmart, and Best Buy as well as through PayPal. (Airline and hotel points can sometimes be used on merch as well as media subscriptions.) If you’re shopping at these stores anyway, you can apply points to purchases at checkout rather than charging costs to your card.

Again, the value varies significantly across rewards programs and retailers. Chase Ultimate Rewards are worth 1 cent per point at Apple but 0.8 cents per point at Amazon; transactions made with Citi ThankYou Rewards may have exclusions and minimum purchase requirements.

Use points to purchase gift cards

Finally, most rewards programs have a selection of gift cards available for purchase with points. You can give gift cards as gifts or use them to buy presents at retailers that aren’t eligible for shopping with points. Be sure to read the fine print, as the delivery options may range from a physical card sent to your address on file to an e-card.

And again, the value of your points will depend on the rewards program—it probably isn’t a surprise at this point that Chase Ultimate Rewards redemption rates top the list with the biggest selection, while airline and hotel rewards get the lowest value when applied to gift cards. American Express Membership Rewards allows you to buy Amex gift cards (not merchant-specific), though at a rate of only 0.5 cents per point.

Source: LifeHacker – How to Use Your Credit Card Rewards to Spend Less on Holiday Gifts

After a packed December, Disney+ has a lighter load of original content planned for January. Continuing from last month, there are additional episodes (premiering weekly on Wednesdays) of the fantasy series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, as well as the final two parts of the docuseries BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star.

Your monthly dose of Marvel centers on Echo (January 9), a gritty, action-filled (TV-MA) series named after the titular character, a deaf superhero. THe trailer suggests a tone and feel that evoke Netflix’s Daredevil. (You may recognize the antagonist from that soon-to-be-rebooted series.) If you like the show itself, the behind-the-scenes Assembled: The Making of Echo is streaming on January 31.

Real stroopwafels are a Dutch treat. They look like thin, finely waffled cookies filled with a stripe of caramel. Faux stroopwafels could be described the same way. But while real stroopwafels take skill and a steady hand to make, the faux variety can be made perfectly by the most careless person in the world.

This is the ideal Christmas treat to make if you’re deathly allergic to baking, cooking, chores, pulling your weight, or “effort” in any sense of the word. You can make faux stroopwafels with just two storebought ingredients: pizzelles and dulce de leche.

What are stroopwafels?

Stroopwafels are composed of a thin, sugary dough that is waffled in a special mold. The ultra thin waffles must then be split in half, coated with caramel, and sandwiched back together. The caramel solidifies, and the resultant confection is a malty, chewy treat. They can be consumed as-is or softened over a steaming mug of coffee or tea. Fresh stroops are absolutely splendid, but you can see how making waffle dough, taking care to not burn something thin and fragile, and then making and filling them with caramel can be a bit “involved.” 

So I combined two delicacies from Italy and many parts of Latin America to make the cheater’s version of this Dutch treat. It’s possibly the laziest hack of all time. Head to the grocery store and grab a jar of dulce de leche and a container of pizelles. They usually come in packs of 24. I’ve seen vanilla, anise, and chocolate pizelles, and while they’d all be good with milk caramel, vanilla will most resemble a classic stroop. They’re usually available in the cookie section of grocery stores, and dulce de leche is often in the “international aisle,” or over by the condensed and evaporated milks.

Crack open the jar (or can) of dulce de leche, and rip open a packet of pizzelles. Use the back of a spoon to smear a spoonful of dulce de leche over one pizzelle, spreading the caramel out almost to the edge of the cookie in a thing layer. (You should be able to see the pizzelle pattern through parts of it.) Then put another pizzelle on top. Gently press and shift the waffles until the caramel is pushed out to the edge. 

If you’re making these for yourself, proceed to consume your crunchy, caramel-y creation. If you’re making them for friends or family (and you are willing to expend a tiny bit of effort), dust them with powdered sugar to add a pinch of sophistication.

Source: LifeHacker – Faux Stroopwafels Are the Laziest Christmas Treat

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for December 19, 2023 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is on the easier side; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for December 19, Wordle #913! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of the letters are common, and there’s one letter that’s not on our list but is still used pretty often in English words. In fact, today’s word would make a decent starter. 

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

It’s one of the things you need for a nice holiday dinner with the family—but it’s not food.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

Nope, no repeats today!

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels in today’s word.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with T.

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with E.

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is TABLE.

How I solved today’s Wordle

ARISE and TOUCH gave me the T and the E, and told me there was an A in there somewhere. Not many options were left—TASTE and other obvious possibilities had been ruled out thanks to the letters I’d already tried—so it pretty much had to be TABLE.

Wordle 913 3/6

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A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: 

• Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Source: LifeHacker – Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Tuesday, December 19, 2023