The Pro Tips for Life Thread

[- kT]

Did a search, didn't find anything
Lifehacks are tips and advice that can help a person get by, avoid a nasty situation, or use new methods of doing things to improve quality of living.

Enjoy, i'll try to keep this thread updated as much as possible

-If you are charged with writing a lengthy research paper, find one very solid source that directly pertains to your thesis, and then you can use that source's bibliography to back into locating new sources.

-Pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth cures brainfreeze and can also suppress the urge to sneeze.

-Next time you lose your phone charger, don't buy another one. Go to a hotel and say you think you lost it there. It's the #1 most left behind item at hotels, so most places have a big bin filled with every phone charger imaginable.

-When you wake up in the middle of the night to do something, cover one eye with your hand and leave it there until you return to darkness. The eye that was covered will have retained its ability to see well in the dark so you will not run into the dresser on your way back to bed.

-Want really, really smooth skin after shaving? Wash your neck and face with ice cold water, even if it hurts. It contracts the pores and can possibly even pull hairs back beneath the surface a bit.

-You know when your arm gets that pins-and-needles feeling that only goes away by waiting?
Just pinch around the elbow so your hand wraps around (or mostly) your arm. Now, holding it like that, run it down your arm while slightly sqeezing inwards till you get to your fingertips.
That recirculates the blood faster than anything else, so your cells now have oxygen and you no longer get that funny dead-hand feeling.

- You're about to go on a big date or speak in front of a crowd and OMG you have a pimple! Keep q-tips dipped in Visine in the freezer. Then just hold it agianst the pimple. The cold takes down the swelling and the visine helps suck out the redness.

-The caffeine nap : caffeine takes ~15-20 minutes to kick in. If you are feeling really tired, drink a cup of coffee and then take a light, 15-20 minute nap. You will wake up incredibly refreshed and awake.

- When your alarm goes off, jump out of bed right away, splash some cold water in your face, jump back into bed and listen to the radio/some music. instead of waking up naturally (which takes years while you moan and groan about how tired you are), you get up and splash water on your face with the satisfaction in knowing that you'll be back in bed in a few seconds. then, when you're back in bed, the wake up naturally process is sped up due to the music and the water you splashed on your face

-If you have chest congestion, drum on your chest lightly but rapidly. Same thing goes for a dry or gooey throat; drum lightly but rapidly on your windpipe. Just drum for ~30s and then wait a minute or two for it to kick in. The effect will last 5-10 minutes before you start getting the feeling again. Repeat until you feel better.

-If you have to drive a very long distance, and you're worried about falling asleep at the wheel, get a huge bag of sun flower seeds. Put a handful at a time in your cheek and then one by one move them into your mouth, crack the shell, eat the kernel, and spit out the shell. The constant movement and focusing will keep you awake.

-Raw organic coconut oil is anti viral, anti microbial, anti fungal, you can use it inside and out. Also swishing it 15 minutes in your mouth and spitting it whitens your teeth

-If you live in a cold area, find a way to keep your room warm while you sleep. Breathing in cold air while you sleep is the easiest way to get sick.

-Tired of phone menus when you call in for something? Asterisk (*) and zero are the most common short-circuit buttons. Sometimes the pound sign (#).

-Your car battery is getting old, hmmm? Not a lot of cranking power left, and it's cold out. AND you have to fire that sucker up and be on your way at 3 a.m. Try this: before turning the key, turn the headlights on for a few seconds. It might seem counter-intuitive, but it works. This process is called "boot-strapping," as in "picking yourself up by the bootstraps." It warms the battery slightly and provides a bit more cranking amps for the initial starting attempt.

-Before you go to bed when you're drunk, chug a big glass of water and eat a banana. If you don't like bananas then take a pill with potassium, and eat a package of soda crakers. The big glass of water is going to wake you up in about 3 hours to go take a pee. When you pee, chug another glass of water. You should wake up after about 6-8 hours with no hangover, works incredibly well.

-Brush your tongue if you want your bad breath to go away. Not the front, way in the back. If you want to eat spicy foods but are a total wuss, do not let the hot part of the food touch the rear sides of your tongue because that is where the tastebuds that detect spiciness reside.

-When you blow your nose, keep your mouth open a bit. You can actually pop (as in, put a hole in) your eardrum if you do not.

-Do not shake nail polish before applying them, doing so makes air bubbles appear. Roll them gently in your hands instead.

-There's a color code subtly incorporated through the bread tie to tell when a loaf of bread was baked. The color of the tie represents the day on which the bread was baked:

++ Monday - blue
++ Tuesday - green
++ Thursday - red
++ Friday - white
++ Saturday - yellow

-When microwaving leftover pizza, it tastes best if you wrap the slice in a damp paper towel.

-Running is bad for your knees over a long period of time. Biking is better.

-To stop a coughing fit (when you swallow liquid): breathe in deeply and hold your breathe for ten seconds, then you should feel ready to make one good cough to clear your throat. Breathe in and out slowly until the spasm passes.

-If you ever feel sick to your stomach, suck on an orange peel. The acid will reduce the sick feeling.

-To clear your sinuses, eat a lot of wasabi. It will hurt tons, but your sinuses clear almost instantaneously.

-Use warm water to brush your teeth, it softens the bristles so you can have an easier time massaging the gumline. Then rinse with cold water, which refreshes and makes everything contract back up.

-If you or someone you know gets mugged, has their purse snatched, whatever, if you look around in dumpsters and trash cans within the next block or two you'll probably find the wallet/purse. It won't have any cash in it (and maybe not any credit cards), but at least you won't have to replace your driver's license, ID cards, library cards, whatever, which is 99% of the pain in the neck about being robbed (aside from the victimization thing).

-High school teachers are pretty wise to whole "increase font size" or "increase margins" thing, but none of them seem to get the whole "increase space between letters ever so slightly, making the paper pages longer" thing.

-If you ever spill red wine on light carpet, shaving cream will get the stain out pretty well.

-Lemons can be used for a lot of things. Make shoes look like new, get rid of coffee/tea stains on old mugs, rust (put a lemon drenched cotton ball on the rust spot overnight), polish copperware, etc.

-Super cleaning, sticker removal, stain removal and more! -- Lighter Fluid, the kind you put in your zippo. Its a great solvent, it cleans plastics, melts the glue on stickers and always evaporates away to nothing. It's good at getting tar and oil out of clothes, and its a great degreaser for mechanical stuff. Its also cheap. Brilliant for taking the price tags off gifts, even book covers.

-Toothpaste will take scratches out of CDs. Buff from the centre outward with a clean, soft cloth or sock. Only regular toothpaste, not the gelly kind.

-When putting in an earring, or any ring for that matter, instead of poking at your ear with the stud, lick your thumb and index finger, or wet them with water, wet where the hole is, and put the stud in. It'll open up the hole so you're not fiddling around at it with the stud.

-Measure your hand from your fingertips to palm and memorize it. Now you can judge the size of anything without a ruler. I've used this my whole life to estimate distances of all kinds of things. Also pick a finger that is pretty close to 1cm or a joint close to 1 inch and remember which is which. You will never need a ruler to estimate again.

-Sore throat or canker sore? Gargling with salt water works wonders for both. Putting salt directly onto the canker sore usually kills it by the next day, at the expense of a short period of immense, agonizing pain.

-Upon waking, drink at least 500ml of water. You are most dehydrated after your done sleeping and it immediately starts your metabolism/bowel movements.

Post any you guys have, try to avoid just going on Lifehacker.com, cause most of those are obvious anyway
long ass read, but IMO it's worth it

[ntan]

nice

[SkinnyPupp]

God I hate that term

Anyway the only one I remember is if you are spending a lot of time studying, just read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. You'll immediately know whether the information is useful.

[- kT]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

God I hate that term

Anyway the only one I remember is if you are spending a lot of time studying, just read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. You'll immediately know whether the information is useful.

what, lifehacks?

i've tried out the brainfreeze/sneeze one, it works
and that phone charger one (in theory) should work pretty well, since i've left at least 2 phone chargers at hotels on trips and stuff

[Culture_Vulture]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

God I hate that term

Anyway the only one I remember is if you are spending a lot of time studying, just read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. You'll immediately know whether the information is useful.

That only works with any semi-decently written piece of literature or with soft sciences.
With hard sciences it's impossible

[The_AK]

-After cooking pasta and the water is drained, use olive oil to keep the pasta from sticking
-If you're about to put a condom on and you only have one left, blow into it to see which way it unravels. That way you won't get any sperm on the tip and won't get Jb from Boss Nightclub pregnant.

[tonyvu]

Originally Posted by The_AK

-After cooking pasta and the water is drained, use olive oil to keep the pasta from sticking
-If you're about to put a condom on and you only have one left, blow into it to see which way it unravels. That way you won't get any sperm on the tip and won't get Jb from Boss Nightclub pregnant.

or why not just roll the condom down your finger... if its placed the right way it will roll down.

[ToyotaPowah]

Originally Posted by The_AK

-After cooking pasta and the water is drained, use olive oil to keep the pasta from sticking
-If you're about to put a condom on and you only have one left, blow into it to see which way it unravels. That way you won't get any sperm on the tip and won't get Jb from Boss Nightclub pregnant.

Using olive oil to keep your pasta from sticking together is only good for certain olive oil-based sauces. Otherwise, the oil will prevent sauce from sticking to the pasta (alfredo, tomato etc.)

[hk20000]

if your leg gets all numbed out after sitting for a long time on the throne or any hard chair, lift the hand of the other side (i.e. left hand if right leg is numb, and v.v.) well above your head will get your leg to unnumb quickly. This is due to your blood flowing down from the lifted arm and into the numb leg.

just like bleeding brakes LOL.

[- kT]

i was actually trying to find a numb leg remedy, cause the numb hand remedy isn't too useful for me, as my hand never goes numb, but my leg falls asleep all the time

good contributions guys!

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by Culture_Vulture

That only works with any semi-decently written piece of literature or with soft sciences.
With hard sciences it's impossible

True, but it helped me finish high school with good grades, even though I only went 1 or 2 days a week

[OffSea]

I've never actually tried that "tongue-roof" thing

Theres an entire website dedicated to this kind of stuff actually..

I'll post it up as soon as I get home, at school right now.

[penner2k]

Originally Posted by OffSea

I've never actually tried that "tongue-roof" thing

Theres an entire website dedicated to this kind of stuff actually..

I'll post it up as soon as I get home, at school right now.

http://lifehacker.com/

[G]

if your about to sneeze, press a finger onto the little dippy part between your nose and mouth (the middle). Press down on that and you won't have to sneeze!

[- kT]

Originally Posted by OffSea

I've never actually tried that "tongue-roof" thing

Theres an entire website dedicated to this kind of stuff actually..

I'll post it up as soon as I get home, at school right now.

Originally Posted by penner2k

http://lifehacker.com/

Originally Posted by - kT

Post any you guys have, try to avoid just going on Lifehacker.com, cause most of those are obvious anyway

yup

[LiquidTurbo]

There's far too much shit out there masquerading as "life-hacks" that aren't very useful.

Like, olive oil on pasta to stop it from sticking? Any decent cook already knows that.

"-When you wake up in the middle of the night to do something, cover one eye with your hand and leave it there until you return to darkness. The eye that was covered will have retained its ability to see well in the dark so you will not run into the dresser on your way back to bed."

I question the real-life applicability of that. Etc.

Really reminds me of that other thread where the dude suggests a way to quickly take off your t-shirt as the expense of stretching it like crazy. Like really, is taking your t-shirt off so difficult and time consuming in the first place?

Anyway, I'll post my contribution as a so-called 'life-hack'.

I recently switched over to a new keyboard layout called Colemak that's far more efficient than the QWERTY model. Long story short, the QWERTY was designed to slow down typists as much as possible to avoid jamming the mechanical typewriter of the 1900s. This is a model designed for 21st century typing where we no longer have those mechanical constraints. The biggest change I noticed is the usefulness of having backspace in place of the caps lock key. This makes it a lot more comfortable from before, where you had to literally move your whole hand. The homerow has been optimized so that many words can be typed from it, as opposed to asdfghjkl; which can't create any words really.
Also, zxcvb have been kept in the same place so that all the useful Windows hotkeys have been preserved.

More info here:
www.colemak.com

[raygunpk]

one of those sites to go on if you're bored

[penner2k]

Originally Posted by R

if your about to sneeze, press a finger onto the little dippy part between your nose and mouth (the middle). Press down on that and you won't have to sneeze!

Why would you actually want to stop yourself from sneezing?
Its not like your body just randomly causes you to sneeze. If you sneeze its for a reason.

[JordanLee]

I can't imagine how hard it'd be to get used to that keyboard. Let alone going to someones house or using a friends laptop for a couple mins.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by The_AK

-If you're about to put a condom on and you only have one left, blow into it to see which way it unravels. That way you won't get any sperm on the tip and won't get Jb from Boss Nightclub pregnant.

You guys can't tell by feel? on the outside you can feel the dip, on the inside it just rolls over smoothly. I've never had a problem with that haha.

Originally Posted by JordanLee

I can't imagine how hard it'd be to get used to that keyboard. Let alone going to someones house or using a friends laptop for a couple mins.

considering I've spent about 14 years of my life typing with QWERTY, changing keyboard formats would be a massive PITA (though admittedly I don't type "properly" to begin with)

[DuhDang]

Originally Posted by LiquidTurbo

There's far too much shit out there masquerading as "life-hacks" that aren't very useful.

Like, olive oil on pasta to stop it from sticking? Any decent cook already knows that.

"-When you wake up in the middle of the night to do something, cover one eye with your hand and leave it there until you return to darkness. The eye that was covered will have retained its ability to see well in the dark so you will not run into the dresser on your way back to bed."

I question the real-life applicability of that. Etc.

Really reminds me of that other thread where the dude suggests a way to quickly take off your t-shirt as the expense of stretching it like crazy. Like really, is taking your t-shirt off so difficult and time consuming in the first place?

Anyway, I'll post my contribution as a so-called 'life-hack'.

I recently switched over to a new keyboard layout called Colemak that's far more efficient than the QWERTY model. Long story short, the QWERTY was designed to slow down typists as much as possible to avoid jamming the mechanical typewriter of the 1900s. This is a model designed for 21st century typing where we no longer have those mechanical constraints. The biggest change I noticed is the usefulness of having backspace in place of the caps lock key. This makes it a lot more comfortable from before, where you had to literally move your whole hand. The homerow has been optimized so that many words can be typed from it, as opposed to asdfghjkl; which can't create any words really.
Also, zxcvb have been kept in the same place so that all the useful Windows hotkeys have been preserved.

More info here:
www.colemak.com

Wow you must suck at typing because everyone I know has no problem with the qwerty style. I can type 160 wpm easily

[TOPEC]

is there any hacks to curing a headache fast?? lol

[- kT]

Originally Posted by RX_Renesis

is there any hacks to curing a headache fast?? lol

[cressydrift]

Originally Posted by RX_Renesis

is there any hacks to curing a headache fast?? lol

Gatorade, then a glass of water, then get some fresh air.

[flagella]

Colemak whatever keyboard is the worst one ever rofl.