I saw a similar thread on Reddit about 12 years ago and one of the suggestions near the bottom that didn’t have any comments on it is something I’ve incorporated into my daily life and it has made a huge difference: Adjust your car mirrors so you have no blind spots.
Most people have their side mirrors adjusted where they can see a portion of their own car in the mirror. This leaves you with large blind spots. To adjust them where you have no blind spots, sit in the driver’s seat and lean your head over to the left as far as you can (basically putting your head on the window), then adjust the driver’s side mirror to where you can just barely see your car in it. Then lean your head over to the passenger side about the same amount and adjust that mirror.
When adjusted properly if you can see a car in your rearview mirror, you shouldn’t be able to see that car in your side mirrors, but as soon as a car is no longer visible in the rearview mirror it should be visible in one of your side mirrors. Then when it is no longer visible in your side mirror it should be in your peripheral vision.
It takes some getting used to, but once dialed in and you’re used to it then it makes changing lanes a breeze. It also helps at night if someone behind you has bright lights because you’ll only see them in one mirror instead of all 3.
Fact checking.
So many people just believe anything they see or hear if it agrees with their worldview.
Vote early. Almost every single area in the US has early voting at least 2 weeks before elections. People complain about long lines and lack of ballots on election day. You know what you get if you stumble into a polling place before that? A couple of bored poll workers in an otherwise empty building. You get your ballot, fill it out, and leave within 5 minutes. I seriously don’t understand why this isn’t used more.
There’s been a misinformation campaign for years that early/mail votes “don’t count” or get thrown away, so people wait until “real” election day to make sure things are “handled properly”…
People like to procrastinate
I always found it weird that voting in the US takes so long
The longest I had to wait in queue was 5 minutes. Normally I just walk in, vote, had out
Using password managers. All of my friends and family refuse to use them but always complain about getting locked out of accounts due to forgetting login details. I leave them too it now.
Buying another box, bag, etc. of soap, toilet paper, tooth paste and whatever long lasting product before it runs out. It doesn’t expire (fast), therefore I always have a second, full bag as a buffer, and as soon as I have to open the second one, I put it on the shopping list so there is always a buffer bag and I don’t get annoyed if I still forget to buy one or it’s out of stock.
It’s been years since I had to use some weird substitute for toilet paper.
Wash dishes while you cook. It was a game-changer for me.
Using an ad blocker
I wouldn’t consider it a “hack”, but I’m always baffled by the number of people who don’t use any kind of content blocker on the web, then complain about full-page ads, pop-ups, and autoplay videos. It’s like going to a cheap motel with a lady of the night without bringing condoms.
More like going to a cheap motel and not expecting bedbugs.
Bed bugs do not discriminate. You can get them in the nicest hotels. Always check.
I work on peoples’ PCs at work (regular people and not business IT), and one thing that I do for every PC I work on is add uBlock Origin Lite to Chrome and uBlock Origin on other browsers no matter what. As 8 or 9 times out of 10 the shit that caused someone to bring in their PC for cleaning are actually full-screen scam messages and scummy ads on sites or from emails. The only times I ever randomly get someone that is upset about the blockers being installed are from either the pickup person not showing them how to use them. Or I get a random person that actually uses those “news” start pages like MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc. not understanding that the blank slides in the main slideshow are not actual articles and are ads.
Mine is that, except they DON’T complain. Like when someone is showing me a YouTube video on their device and an ad shows up 30 seconds in… I lunge for the mute button while I scan the room for a blanket, clipboard, or other item to shield us, yelling “AVERT YOUR EYES!!” but next to all of my commotion, they’re just nodding along placidly like “Oh Coinbase, interesting.”
Like… Aren’t you affronted that some company paid another company to make it less convenient to do the thing you’re trying to do?! Does the gaudy, pushy tone change to too-loud propaganda designed to coax you away from your money not gall you?!
“Idk sometimes the ads are interesting. Free month sounds good.”
Jesus christ he’s too far gone.
Some of the ad revenue goes to pay the people that made the content tho.
When someone asks a thing like this on Lemmy, look up the same thread on Reddit (guaranteed to find it was recently also posted there) and copy-pasta some of the top posts. Guaranteed worthless internet up arrows.
I mean… you’re not wrong. Just thought that it would be a great question to ask here. Also, with fewer users on Lemmy, there tend to be more genuine answers than on Reddit.
Please keep doing this because I’m never going back😎
The real hack is always in the comments or something
I just said to someone that Lemmy comment sections have a little bit of that Reddit 2014 vibe and here you are with the Reddit 2014 meme.
The real Reddit 2014 memes were the friends we made along the way.
/jThe ol’ Lemmy-switch-a-roo?
Reddit comment section nostalgia activated
I can tell I’m going to like it here
I encourage this only because I never again want to touch that god forsaken site
When you come home after a night of heavy boozing, just chug an entire liter of water before you go to bed. It prevents the worst part of the hangover, headaches, which are just from dehydration.
This used to work for me but these days the only way it works is if I pace myself with a big glass of water in between each alcoholic drink. The “chug a liter when I get home” only somewhat helps now, but barely.
This also should be the norm. It doesn’t even reduce your drunkness, just makes it more enjoyable and less unconfortable
My trick is to eat an asian pear before drinking. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23587660/
Damn that’s pretty cool. Wonder how their ethical committee responded. Does it affect the drunkenness?
I dont drink often anymore, and not heavily, just a few glasses of wine or a beer or two. I don’t feel like the pear affects the high at all. Maybe I don’t get hungover because I don’t drink enough, but I like to credit the pear.
Some good kebab helps too, probably due to the fat and salt, but water over kebab, if you have to choose.
kebab will always be my top choice, unless shawarma is also an option
When I was younger and drank more I did this, and it sure helps with hard liquor.
When you’re drunk that big glass of water can be hard to get down, but do it anyway.
Yeah, I find having something to eat helps too.
Could be a double edged sword, just make sure you don’t miscalculate and end up with “twice the taste no calories”.
Working in IT.
Tell the truth.
We will get lied to straight to our face and when proven they are lying they double down and get annoyed.
We don’t care that you spilt coffee on your keyboard, we just need to know it happened so we can get you a new one.
I think medical doctors have this same problem with lying and embarrassed patients.
Honestly, I was naked after the shower and just fell on it!
“Million to one shot, doc!”
Ah the ol “toilet plunger lodged 1.3m in the rectum” caper.
Happens every time.
“Everyone lies” - House, MD
House:“everybody lies”
if I suspect something was spilled, I always let them know that we have accidental damage coverage and things like spills are covered and that makes the truth come out a bit smoother.
And then you tell them you lied.
hahahahaha, in my case, I’ve been lucky that the places I’ve worked we actually have always bought the accidental damage coverage!
I also practically start the conversation with this info so I don’t get lied to initially.
But it’s ok because they did too. So no social awkwardness, but you need to let hr know they lied about damaging company property and they should start packing their desk.
Email management. Like at all. Set up filters and use the archive. There is a key to do that. And holy fuck 2432 unread emails? You should be ashamed of yourself
I am ashamed.
That’s all newsletters. I promise.
- Go to “all mail” view.
- Find the first newsletter.
- Unsubscribe.
- Search “from:email@from.newsletter”.
- Select all and delete.
- Repeat 1-5 until no newsletters remain.
Now you’ll have a pile of emails you can actually parse, and all the newsletters clogging up your inbox will stop arriving in the future.
Do this every time your emails start to get away from you and you’ll be golden.
damn I’ve been making a new email when it gets too spammy and keep a list of accounts for changing all my accounts over
I think the better solution is to simply set up a filter for the word “Unsubscribe”.
You might be able to select all. Wait 3 hours. Press ‘mark as read’. Wait another 3 hours. And then unsubscribe as the bullshit hits your inbox
Also. Move read emails to the archive people. That’s what it is there for.
🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Used to work in a public library. Majority of the job was walking people through “forgot password” which was never a simple affair, and getting to see what a Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL inbox looks like with like 90,000 unread because they gave their email to every store and web form they ever encountered.
Near drove me to madness.
Problem I have is I got my lastname@gmail.com as my email address. Many times when people with my same last name they’ll type firstname<space>lastname@gmail.com for their email address. And guess who gets signed up?
At first I unsubscribed, replied back to emails that were meant for someone else, etc. But the number of things to unsubscribe from unmanageable and it gets to be too much of a chore.
Holy cow, we have the same problem. I only got firstnamelastname@gmail.com so I only get folks with permutations of my first and last name, but to this day I still get my Nigerian counterpart’s bank statements. I’ve got my UK counterpart’s PayPal payments for artwork they did. I’ve had my Australian counterpart’s job recruiters reaching out to me for months. It’s kind of embarrassing when I tell them they have the wrong email…
Hah. I’ve a counterpart that I’ll happily pass stuff on to as I’ve worked out her actual email but the rest are super annoying. So many sign ups!
I had 6000 ish, recently went through and started unsubscribing and deleting. Got it down to 1200
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using an ad blocker. personally, i use ad blockers for years and when i work on a friends laptop im shocked how much ads there are actually. i cant count on a hand how mucn i told my father he should use ad blocker browser and extenstion. and he wont do it. recently, i changed the DNS server on a router level to nextdns, where it blocks ads and trackers. he told me its amazing how smoother the experience is now
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password managers. as an IT specialist i have about 300 login details for many services, personal, work and clients. every login has its own password and eventually email too. and i know sooooo many people who forgot their passwords (they have about 3 very similar ones but ok) and try them all until they find out they had to creat a new for that specific service. and they are so unaware about the dangers (for example fishing, SE, …) with this method.
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- Continuing study after school. Whether its science, political theory, or anything, a lot of people stop reading or studying anything after college / school.
- Doing something creative as an outlet (music, art, knitting, anything). A lot of people are just consumption machines nowadays, mostly consuming things other people have made, rather than creating something.
- Physical exercise.
- Having explicit long-term goals and working towards them.
Having time for all that would be nice.
None of those things needs a big time requirement. You could work out for 5 minute a day if you want, study for 5 minutes, and do something creative for 5 minutes.
Most people don’t prioritize vitally important things like self study.
I agree, but putting the time to make space and pull out study material has to have the value of learning enough. I do actually study regularly, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t require significant energy and dedication to produce a result.
When you’re studying for a class you need to study hours to hit those deadlines. In adult life you can do 5 minutes a week if you want.
Yeah this screams privilege lol
I would agree, except for the continue studying. Everyone has at least 20 minutes of downtime that they could put towards learning a new concept every day
everyone has at least 20 minutes […] every day.
No.
A lot of people do, but a lot of people don’t.
They may have months without any time surplus. And then maybe some months where they do have a significant time surplus.
But never assume everyone has the same time to dedicate to things.
My mom is currently working 50h weeks and I’m sure that’s on the lower end for some people. I’d prefer her to focus on not getting burnout so she is able to survive a bit longer, and that means she physically can’t.
No.
Yes.
Everyone has the time, not everyone has the priorities (this isn’t a dig, it’s a reference to some inspirational speech I heard in high school). 50 hour work week and 56 hours of sleep leaves 62 hours in the week. Probably another 12 hours split across 7 days for cooking, eating, etc. which leaves 50 hours to recover, study, exercise, or do whatever she pleases.
She values using those 50 hours to recover from the 50 working hours more than learning a new concept. That’s not invalid or wrong in any way, everyone has their priorities and values and they’re allowed to do whatever they want with their time.
That being said, everyone has the time they just might not have the mental space. But increasing your human capital by learning something new is often a great way of reducing stress. Learn to handle something in a new way, learn a little about financial theory, learn something that helps you at work. The best weapon you have against the injustice of daily life is knowledge. If you have the mental space, find the time to learn something
ETA: Coming from the perspective of a full time student who spends 6+ hours daily searching for a job because I’ve been down on my luck since quitting a year ago. I grew up poor and watched my mom work full time, put herself through school, raise three kids, and continues to fight every day for the right to live; I know the struggle you’re going through right now. Spend your time better than I did.
You didn’t mention: caring for elderly parents, getting out of an abusive relationship, working two jobs, having a disabled kid, having a chronic illness, being in a legal fight with a neighbour, the list goes on. How many hours a week does one of those take? What if you have two?
Sure, but if you’re working 50 hours a week (assuming US, I dunno laws elsewhere) you’re guaranteed 2.5 hours of mealtime per week that could be spent watching an informational video or reading an article.
I’m not saying “go back to school or you’re wasting your time” I’m saying “you have a few minutes where you could be reading a new idea instead of sitting on social media”
Nah, real “people who can’t afford [blank] are just lazy” energy here. You have no idea what others have to do in their day to day lives. To some, working 50 hours a week would be a luxury, let alone time to go to school.
You’re injecting malice into my words. The point was “if you have the mental space for it, you should spend your time learning because it helps reduce stress by being both cathartic and relieving issues in your life”
Careful, you’re going to get priviledge checked by the g*mer who thinks reading books and exercise is something only rich ppl have time to do.
Dude it’s not a dig lmao
You just have some privileges that allow you to have more free time. If I was you I probably wouldn’t do anything differently
As someone with both ASD and ADHD, I’m practically allergic to not learning. Blows my mind that most people aren’t the same in some regard.
What do these diagnoses have to do with learning? In my experience, these conditions can manifest in many different ways for people.
For the most part, you can over generalise by saying it causes me to obsess/hyper focus on these topics.
I have ADHD with ASD tendencies, despite not being autistic (long story). People like us are more frequently the types who find something new to be interesting, then dive in and learn EVERYTHING about it. For example, I recently bought a new car and spent days near obsessively learning about it. How it works (first electric car), how to model current vs acceleration, how to tear it down and rebuild it, etc. I’m now in the process of compiling a FAQ for my wife, who doesn’t share my obsessive tendencies and can’t retain my frequent “hey sweetie, this is interesting!” data dumps, and setting up monitoring and automations for it on our home lab.
I used to think this was what everyone did. Turns out it’s not normal.
Same. I don’t own any subscriptions except for YouTube premium. There is an endless amount of educational content on there and it’s the only content I really watch.
Yeah, I also have premium. I’m a mathematician and it’s always great getting suggested all the new channels posting interesting videos.
As a programmer, same. Endless content on every programming concept, language, or niche that you can think of. Math videos often as well. Numberphile is one of my favorite math channels. They have a computer channel too.
Yeah, I am also a programmer. I’m nearing the end of a double degree in mathematics and computer science. Finding a new video at this point is honestly exciting because I’ve seen pretty much everything! (or so it feels)
I prefer reading Wikipedia. For learning, I need stuff to be written down in a well-structured, indexed way.
When working two jobs in third world country. Time is luxury to sleep and rest the body and mind. There is no time for the rest of it.
Not smoke.
