

Life hacks to make things easier - ColinWright
http://mintfish.tumblr.com/post/33739276329/99-life-hacks-to-make-your-life-easier

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adaml_623
Rubber band stretched over a paint tin seems to have a bad failure mode that
flings paint across the room if the rubber band breaks.

~~~
miahi
It can also spread drops if you make it vibrate when cleaning the brush.

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jwdunne
For the key ring idea, I find that using the edge of a key works well too. If
you take the key and push one of its top edges between the two bands in the
key ring, it will pop open, with the key sandwiched between the two. Do this
near the start of the helix and you can just slide the key on. You could also
do this with other fairly hard and sharp edges to prop it open when you're
putting on things without a hard and sharp edge. The staple remover idea is
more elegant I guess but I can't say I've ever had one available when making
additions to a keyring (best do it immediately, I'm quite clumsy). I'm a
habitual nail biter too so I haven't any nails to use, let alone save, hence
this little trick!

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highace
Oh no... reddit's leaking.

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watty
I like how the bad Reddit PR articles that were appearing last week for the
investigation of Violentacrez were all flagged into oblivion due to "not
technical enough" yet we continue to see articles like these.

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solarflair
Re: painting the lock on your sliding glass door white -- this is a good tip
for gun safeties as well. Put some red paint on the part that's exposed when
the safety is off and then remember "red = dead."

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bluetidepro
I have seen a lot of these before except _"Put a wooden spoon across a boiling
pot of water to keep it from boiling over."_ That is a new one to me. What's
the science of that? How/why does that work?

Also, on the _Exit on left or exit on right_
(<http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbyisdluoz1qhkzpz.jpg>) - I don't think that
applies to all cities. I know for a fact there is some signs in my city that
do not do this, especially older signs.

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JangoSteve
For the wooden spoon across the pot, here's the original reddit thread with
discussion:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/od9at/lpt_put_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/od9at/lpt_put_wooden_spoon_across_boiling_pot_of_water/)

The spoon breaks the surface tension of the bubbles, causing them to pop when
they start to boil over.

Other people seem to be saying a metal spoon should work just as well (with
the added bonus that it won't warp, unlike a wooden spoon), with the only
downside that it will be hot to take off. I'm doubtful that a metal spoon
would work as well though, because metal does not absorb moisture like wood
and also has a smoother surface (i.e. less surface area on a microscopic
level), and so it probably wouldn't be as effective in making the bubbles
attach and pop. Of course the only way to know for sure would be to do an
experiment.

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evilduck
It also depends on the foodstuff and ratio of that food to the volume of water
as well. Pot diameter plays a role too, a wider pot provides more room for
each bubble and less chance to "climb" one another, plus a wider surface
requires more volume of foam to breach the top of the pot.

I'm no chemist, but my observations from cooking and homebrewing, pasta and
wort boil over worse than plain water because dissolved
starches/sugars/proteins allow the bubbles to have greater surface tension and
hold together better. If you cook with more water but the same quantity of
food, the bubbles have less surface tension and you can probably avoid the
boil over scenario altogether.

For this particular life tip, I would expect a starch-laden foam from cooking
pasta to leave a residue on the spoon as the bubbles popped that would
eventually let it boil over still. It will buy you some additional time before
a mess is made of your stove though.

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pawelwentpawel
Pants hanger used as a book holder is my favorite. I use two of those to
attach papers to my laptop screen when I'm reading/coding at the same time.

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m0shen
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lUyUKtD...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lUyUKtD5MxYJ:mintfish.tumblr.com/post/33739276329/99-life-
hacks-to-make-your-life-easier+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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superasn
Hopefully in 5 years we will be able to download a 3d printer files and print
out of most this stuff at home fully customized to your needs, instead of
cutting bottles, or using "X" as "Y" hack.

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ColinWright
So, you mean that we can use toxic processes to create the 3D "ink" that 3D
printers use, and then use those 3D printers to build things that can't be
recycled and end up in landfill, rather than taking stuff, re-using it, and
thereby reducing the amount of landfill?

No, I'm not being _entirely_ serious, and yes, I too look forward to the day
when 3D printers are common-place and used effectively and efficiently. But
even so, I hope that people will always find inventive ways to reduce, re-use
and recycle, especially when they are an inventive as some of these. I've
already used two of them this morning.

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superasn
Yes, my post wasn't entirely serious as well. Also one more thing, lately 3D
printers have started using re-usable and re-cycle "ink"[1] so it may only be
increasing re-usability after all.

[1] <http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html>

~~~
ColinWright
More particularly, they can use PLA filament - here's some information about
that:

[http://www.faberdashery.co.uk/about/why-our-filament-is-
so-g...](http://www.faberdashery.co.uk/about/why-our-filament-is-so-great/)

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drpgq
Does the toothpaste on the headlights actually work? I just paid $99 to my
mechanic to use some 3M thing to fix the headlights on my 04 Hyundai Accent
that were quite clouded over.

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agazso
It works. My scuba diving instructor taught us, that you can use toothpaste in
your scuba glasses when they get hazy all the time.

Spit also works, which is handy when you are in the sea, but not so much when
you have to clean your headlights :)

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miahi
What do you mean by hazy on scuba glasses? Because I don't think you mean tiny
scratches and porous surface because of cleaning agents, dirt and dust (what
happens with the headlights when they get "cloudy") but hazy in the sense of
condensed water on the glasses (water droplets from the temperature
difference). Toothpaste and spit work in this case because they are a bit
greasy, and this will stop the condensation on the surface.

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agazso
Sorry, I really meant cloudy.

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Evgeny
I'm so happy I scrolled to the last one ... so obvious, but never came across
my mind.

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watty
I assume the wet paper towel speeds up the process by a little bit? I can't
imagine it makes that big of a difference and still probably slower than
throwing it in the ice tray of your freezer.

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tehwalrus
it will; it's about thermal contact. the air in a fridge or freezer isn't very
good at conducting the heat out of things to the (antiradiator - absorber?) at
the top.

The cold towel will absorb heat from both the drink and the room in a room,
but only the drink in the freezer. and it will do it much faster than the air
would.

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anotherevan
I think there should be a blog devoted just to creative uses of the cardboard
tube out of toilet rolls!

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thejosh
/r/lifeprotips from reddit.

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ColinWright
I've never used reddit so I have no idea what's there, except to infer things
from the comments made here. This was a link that was sent to me directly by a
colleague, and I've already used two of the tips, and expect to use more
before the end of the day. I found many of them mundane, but some of them
surprising and truly worthy of the sobriquet "hack", and hence the submission.

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edanm
First of all, I'd love to hear what hacks you've actually used. A lot of them
seemed interesting, but I'll probably forget them when I actually need them.
Hearing about specific ones will help.

Secondly, friendly recommendation - you should check out Reddit. You're a
serious HNer, so I assume you care at least a little about the goings-on
online, and Reddit is a _big_ part of the internet now. See it, if only to be
able to say that you saw it.

I barely visit Reddit myself, but there are a few things it's good for - for
example, information about specific topics tends to be found in subreddits
about that topic. E.g., I started playing piano recently, and to get
interesting info on it, searched "piano reddit" in google. Not only are there
generally good discussions there, some popular reddits like this one have an
FAQ which lists links to lots of previous discussions you might be interested
in.

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ColinWright
Specifically, today I used the cut down milk carton to make a small "dustpan"
for picking up beads, screws, and other small items, and then I used a
stocking over a vacuum cleaner to pick up some of said small items that had
fallen down earlier.

Later I used toilet roll core to hold some wrapping paper neatly, and I'm
looking at using more to tidy some cables. I've made notes of several of the
others and am putting them in my associative store. I expect I will use the
"USB on TV to charge phone" idea at some point, I'll just need to remember it
at the right time.

As for reddit, yes, perhaps I should go, but I have enough infinite time sinks
already, and I'm disinclined to add another. If it pops up in a web search
then I'll use it, but otherwise I'm unlikely to get started. I tend to be a
bit obsessive, so not reading is better than reading and trying to limit
myself.

And I'm not really a serious HNer, although sometimes people get the
impression that I am. There are other things I do _way_ more seriously.

