• zcd@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Wrestle the pig first, every day. Whatever is your worst, most unpleasant, annoying task for the entire day, do it before you do anything else. It minimizes your stress and worrying and puts it in the rearview mirror.

    • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      My former mentor said: 80% of the deliverable is the 20% of the scope you really don’t want to do

      • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, everyone’s neurochemistry is different and should be experimented with.

        I didn’t know this for so long, that I needed a few easy wins to set the pace, that I feel like I could have been way more productive throughout my 20s haha

    • MBM@lemmings.world
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      2 months ago

      I feel like saying “I have to do this before anything else” might very well end with me doing nothing

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I have some paperwork to do that will likely result in $2000. It’s been over a year and i cannot just sit down and do it. I stress over it every day but continue to put it off.

      • davidagain@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Today. Let’s both finish our paperwork today. The sense of freedom and achievement will be good.

        • Today@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Ok. I have a 2 hour car ride this afternoon. I will get everything ready this morning and do it in the car. Thanks! Good luck!

          • davidagain@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Excellent. I hope you did OK. I got mine done! It wasn’t as bad as I thought. If you haven’t finished yet, don’t give up, pick up the pieces and carry on. Thanks for being my Internet buddy on this.

            • Today@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Congratulations! I didn’t finish, but did get a good start on it. Thanks for the encouragement!

                • Today@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I’m on vacation until Wednesday so I will finish it on my flight home. Getting started really was the hardest part. Now it’s just putting numbers into boxes and adding them up. By gathering info and starting on it, i find that the expected $2k gain is closer to $10k. That’s some great motivation to get it done!

    • Random_Character_A@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Human memory is bias towards most recent things in a group set. If your set is a “workout” or a “workday”, doing the fun stuff last will affect positively all the memory items in the same group set. This works even if you know that your memory is doing this.

      We don’t live in a “present now”. We live in a mental image constructed from memory of recent past.

      Trick is not to do unpleasant stuff first, but to do pleasant stuff last.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think “waking up early” counts, but it’s definitely the most unpleasant and annoying task of my weekdays, followed closely by actually getting to work.

      • Today@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I hate the talk about soda. It’s a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn’t killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed. -stepping off my soapbox-

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          Fruit juice is notorious for this.

          ‘but its fruit juice! Its 100% natural!’

          Most still have added sugars on top of the fact that most of the fruit has been squeezed out only leaving… Sugars.

          Even on their own, the natural fruit sugars aren’t enough to make drinking fruit juice “healthy” when all the fiber has been squeezed out.

          But the one two punch of sugars is just as bad as any other sugary drink.

          Same with cans of Arizona or Snapple or anything else. It’s all terrible.

        • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The problem isn’t carbonation (Bubly, Liquid Death have 0g). The problem is carbonated sugary drinks typically have more sugar than other sugary drinks, not a rule but per amount sold.

          The typical soda has 38g of sugar per 12oz (can). Google states the following: Coca-Cola is 45g. Mountain Dew is 46g. Redbull and Monster are 34g. Arizona Sweet Tea is 31g. Apple juice is 33g. Orange juice is 28g. Cranberry juice is 42g.

          Anything over 28g is no go territory for me. Anything under is generally not an issue blood sugar wise for me. Note: I am not diabetic.

        • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          People don’t realize that ultra processed food is basically everything they eat and drink. There are very few things that aren’t, and they’re mostly whole food adjacent.

          If it’s not straight up water and plain vegetables, fruit, and grain equivalents, it’s more than likely ultra processed no matter how healthy it claims to be.

          So much of non-genetic cancers comes from what we ingest willingly. A large portion of it would stop if everyone ate a well rounded whole foods diet. But shit is expensive, takes time and kwh to make, and people are busy trying to enjoy life.

          Conventional Cereal? Terrible. https://www.livestrong.com/article/13774827-is-eating-cereal-every-day-bad/

          Certain processed fiber gives you liver cancer Ffs lol.

          https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/diets-high-in-processed-fiber-may-increase-risk-of-liver-cancer-in-some-people

      • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I try not to drink calories at all, but if I do, it’s considered part of the meal.

        I strongly recommend this, as strongly as reading the news everyday. Don’t watch or listen to it, READ it. It makes you conscious of your participation, makes it easier to remember, and over time, will sharpen your critical thinking skills

        If you’ve ever thought ‘holy fuck some people are dumb’, well, if they read the news on the reg, they’d be less and less dumb, everyday.

    • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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      2 months ago

      I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.

      But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.

    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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      2 months ago

      I feel like there’s a subtlety here. Ocassional Glass of wine with dinner versus binge drinking.

      Of course the problem is that the first drink makes then next one more attractive and degrades impulse control… so YMMV.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        One is too many and a thousand is never enough.

        Edit: I do get the irony of someone with my username posting this. I understand what’s wrong with binge drinking and me in general, I’m just not ready to fix it.

    • 10_0@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Trying new wines is a good experience, not much of a drinker, but a good wine or cider is great for relaxing and overall experience

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Yep. For me it made the week so much easier…wake up fresher, work out easier, handle job tasks smoother.

      Friday night have fun. Wednesday? Nah. Tea please.

  • dephyre@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It’s amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
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      2 months ago

      My wife’s Italian. Replace your items with always having a bottle of sauce and a packet of pasta in the cupboard, and there’s always a meal to be had no matter how empty the fridge is.

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Amen to that. But I can’t do jar/bottled sauce so if I want easy noodles, it’s cook noodles, leave some pasta water after draining, throw in some butter at the end to make it thicc, then serve topped with olive oil/red pepper flakes/salt/pepper/parmigiano Reggiano (all things I make sure I always have in stock always)

        I also keep a stack of cans of San Marzano tomatoes to make a red sauce any time I want, but that takes a couple hours instead of 20 minutes.

        • ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz
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          2 months ago

          There are good sauces you can make from canned tomatoes in 20 minutes (depending on your prep speed).

          My go tos are Putanesca & Vodka sauce, but there’s a lot more you can do. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has a simple recipe and then a big list of variants, most of which can be done in 20 minutes.

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Noted, thank you! I have a specific sauce I like to make, and I like it best simmered for a couple hours in a Dutch oven hahaha

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      Yes. And you can get all kinds of crap canned. The only thing I’ve found you can’t really replace is crunchy greens.

      I’m not surprised people don’t know after decades of cold supply chain, but it’s a thing.

  • myersguy@lemmy.simpl.website
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    2 months ago

    If you need to remember something for the next time you go out, put your shoes somewhere odd. When you go to leave, you’ll remember you moved them, which will remind you why you moved them.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    Buying lots of identical pairs of socks massively reduces the amount of time you need to find matching pairs after drying them.

  • Chemical Wonka@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    I scrape CVV number of my credit card and save it on my smartphone because if I lost my credit card nobody will be able to shop on line

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Drink water instead of soda, alcohol, other sugary drinks. Eventually you’ll find yourself to be an expert water connoisseur and prefer water over pretty much all beverages.

  • livingcoder@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    You can just pinch the end of a banana to start peeling it. The effort required is far less than trying to overcome the ripping force of the stem.

    • EmptySlime@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      My partner hates when I open bananas like this because there’s a little dark part of the banana under that end of the peel that she calls “The Ban-anus” and thinks it’s gross even if I pick off that part and don’t eat it.

    • Faresh@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I don’t get the banana trick. What do I do after pinching? I just end up ripping through the skin of one while trying it out.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Bananas are the way they are through millenia of selective breeding, so there’s no reason to think that monkeys know anything we don’t. If pinching the bottom is easier than bending the stem, your banana isn’t ripe yet and doesn’t want to be eaten until later.

        • Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          A) that seems backwards: an under ripe banana will be stiff inside so you can snap the peel around the stem when you bend it, while a riper, softer banana will mush inside when you bend the stem. And,

          B) like I give a fuck what a banana wants

          • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            A) The peel becomes easier to tear faster than the inside gets softer. You don’t need to snap it, it doesn’t need nearly enough tension to count as a snap once it’s ripe.

            B) The banana’s been selectively bred to want to be as delicious as possible. It only wants you to be happy.

          • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Yes. Every time, it’s gone less well than opening a banana from the stem end, unless the banana was horrendously underripe. I’ve never had the problem the alternative approach is claiming to fix unless I’ve intentionally opened the banana badly on purpose to prove a point about the problem really being people opening from the stem end incompetently.

            • Twista713@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              While I can concede your point that it’s feasible and possibly even more practical to open from the stem, I gotta say that since switching to the other end years ago(because I saw a similar thread on reddit), it’s been super easy and I’ve had zero issues. The stem just has a higher rate of fucking up, but it’s not like either end will fully decimate the banana. Peeling properly after it’s opened is an easy fix either way.

    • DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      That’s way too slow.

      Take one end in each hand, hold it “like a frown” in front of you.
      Bend it in half downward and bite the peak of the bend with one of your canines.
      when it snaps open, shove one half of the banana into your mouth, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
      Shovel the other half into your mount, (chew if needed, then) swallow.

    • marx2k@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I just use my fingernail to make a small cut at the stem end and then it’s super easy to peel that back

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.

    Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.

    • diegantobass@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Hey that’s a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.

      Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?

      @dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I’d say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes means.” Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.

        If you want to add meat. If you don’t do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)

        If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)

        There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.

        • memfree@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          This is the way.

          You start frying an onion and then figure out what you’re making for dinner.

    • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn’t formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.

    • norimee@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it’s super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.

      This is the blogpost that inspired me https://rasamalaysia.com/green-tea-rice/

      • HonkyTonkWoman@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.

        The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Not really a “hack” but I don’t know why most people get into phone contracts.

    Since college, I have always just bought unlocked phones with cash and then used the carrier’s prepaid plans and set it to auto pay.

    I pay so much less than most people I know, I get all the same service, and my phone isn’t tied to a contract or carrier, so I can cancel my plan whenever I want and switch to another carrier by just buying their SIM card for ~$20.

    My current phone is an unlocked Pixel 6a that I got on sale new for $300. I have unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month. And if I get sick of my current carrier or they bump my cost, I can just switch to anybody else for just the cost of a $20 SIM card.

    I have so many friends and family members that complain about their phone bills being super high and their service sucking, but they can’t cancel their contracts without paying off their huge balances plus the interest and usually cancelation fees. Plus, because their phone is tied to the contract/carrier, they can’t even keep transfer the phone to the new carrier and have to get sucked into a “phone trade-in” deal and the cycle continues.

    And for the folks saying that most people can’t afford to save up and buy a phone outright, there are a lot of places that offer payment plans for the phone, or you can buy it on credit and pay it off that way, which would likely be less interest over time. Or you could buy unlocked used/refurbished phones for 25-50% off their normal price.

    Maybe it makes sense if you get a stipend from your company, or you bundle it with a bunch of other packages like cable TV or internet, but for just a cell phone, I just don’t get locking yourself into a crazy contract.

    • PureTryOut@lemmy.kde.social
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      2 months ago

      This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.

      Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.

      • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        France is a bit similar, but a new phone company decided to cut down the costs by not providing a phone. 20 € a month formore data than you’ll ever need or 50 € a month with the latest iPhone included everyone chooses the first option

      • TostiHawaii@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        I believe a major factor in this was a ruling by the Hoge Raad that a “free” phone with a contract is unlawful and is actually a loan. Carriers now have to list the price for the phone and for the service separately, so it’s a lot more clear what the costs of the phone are.

        Also, a “free” phone is now registered as a loan with monthly recurring costs, which impacts for example the maximum mortgage you can get on a home.

    • nul9o9@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Bonus points in that android phones won’t have their bootloader encrypted by a cellular service provider.

    • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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      2 months ago

      Part of the problem is that we’re advertised at constantly, so when the latest, greatest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel comes along we feel like we need it. Because if we get the £1200 phone the resell value in two years will still be high, right? It actually makes sense.

      But the only way to afford that is to borrow the money to pay for it.

      I picked up an iPhone 13 mini last year, on a two year contract, for £29 a month. And that’s ok by me. By the end of my contract I’ll go SIM-only and my bill will drop to around £10 a month, which I’ll rock until Apple finally release another mini phone.

      So this 13 mini will be the last phone I ever use…

      • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Verizon, might have been a little less, but reasonable to me, I keep my phones for a long time, and I got a really good deal on it.

    • kinkles@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Because people want the latest iPhone or Samsung and paying $ per month works better for them than $$$ upfront. The alternate finance method you speak of isn’t very well known, so it’s most simple to contract with a carrier.

    • KingJalopy @lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I don’t know if I’m grandfathered in or what but I have Google Fi (I know I know I suck) and have 3 lines unlimited everything for $80/month

    • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      But who actually does this otherwise? I have seen those kind of contracts advertised, but I never see people actually having them, apart from some 16yo who want the new iPhone by all means and this is the only way they can finance it.

    • Mystic Fionna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      If you go prepaid for a year you can get service for even cheaper. I don’t need unlimited data so I buy a year of Mint Mobile’s cheapest plan for about 200 dollars which gives unlimited talk and text and 5gb data for only around 15 dollars a month.

  • otarik@feddit.it
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    2 months ago

    Start reading the nutritional facts on food packages. In the beginning it will make little sense. But as time goes by, you start understanding it a bit more and to notice patterns.

    Eventually you start doing wiser choices. I’ve learned pretty quickly that the “healthy options” (e.g. low sugar cookies) are as bad for you than the regular ones.

  • red_pigeon@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    To stop infinite scroll on social media, quickly scroll 2-3 screen lengths down without looking at the posts. Now read the posts scrolling up. Eventually you’ll reach where you started and most probably the laziness to go all the way back will prompt you to exit the app.

  • tunetardis@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    One time I was in Mexico with my wife while our daughter was still a baby and the lady at the front desk of the hotel where we were staying offered us a crib we could borrow. It was a kind gesture, but I was a little concerned because the crib seemed wobbly. I realized there were some screws loose but though I had a multitool on me, the holes were stripped.

    So later, I was talking with a local and he’s like “I can fix that.” He comes over and pulls a pack of toothpicks out of his pocket. He sticks one into each hole and breaks it off so that it’s not sticking out anymore. Then he drives the screw back in. I shook the crib after that and it was rock solid!

    Now I always keep some toothpicks handy. Fast-forward to just this year. My daughter is now an adult living in a condo, and was complaining the screw popped out of a kitchen cabinet door when her roommate yanked on it too hard. “I can fix that.”

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Wood glue and/or toothpicks are probably stronger than the particle board most furniture is made of nowadays, it’s repairing and strengthening.

      • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Another adjacent life hack is when assembling flat pack furniture, use a quality wood glue on all the joints and connectors, but especially those little wood dowels. It won’t make it indestructible, but it’ll hold up far better over time.

    • TheSambassador@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It works a bit better if you put a little bit of wood glue on the tip of each toothpick before driving it into the hole. Definitely a great trick!

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I still don’t understand how this works. Maybe a video or image would help. How would he drive the screw in to the toothpicks if it was stripped?

      • tunetardis@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Well the toothpick shifts to one side as you put the screw in.

        The problem with a stripped hole is that the hole is now as wide as the screw, so the screw has nothing to grip anymore. Conventional wisdom in this case is that you should get a wider screw and try again, but that’s not always something you have on hand, especially when travelling.

        But the toothpick hack takes it the other way. It’s effectively narrowing the hole again by taking up space in it, and now your same screw can work again.

    • Rade0nfighter@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’m so glad you posted this - my integrated fridge door has dropped slightly after being taken off and put back on when installed. Can’t really screw back into mdf/chipboard/whatever and I’ve been stressing about getting it fixed for months because whilst it’ll get worse over time, it technically works and no doubt the fitter would say I need to take the whole thing out and replace the side panel.

      Thank you!

      • constantokra@lemmy.one
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        2 months ago

        Sometimes fridge doors sag because the bushings on the hinges break or deteriorate. I’ve fixed them before by adding washers in place of the bushings, or cutting a new bushing out of a hard plastic cutting board.