Setting Up Your Home Office

When you use the internet on your laptop, tablet, or phone, your browser stores information about the sites you visit and how you engage with them to improve loading speed and personalize your browsing. Caching is one of these processes. Here's how it works and why you should consider clearing it regularly. What exactly is a browser cache?Your browser cache is a temporary storage area for elements of websites you visit, like images, fonts, and code. When you first visit a website, your browser downloads and stores that data locally to load the next time you navigate back to that site. When you come back, your browser first checks the cache for an existing page version, b…

Our hearts beat faster when we exercise, which is why heart rate training can be so useful. But when we aren’t doing anything, our heart rate can still be useful to know. If you have a wearable that measures your resting heart rate (RHR), here’s how to understand what it’s telling you. What is a normal resting heart rate? Medical professionals usually consider anything between 60 and 100 beats per minute (bpm) to be a “normal” resting heart rate. But they are usually measuring resting heart rate in people who are in a healthcare setting, sitting quietly. Notably, they are awake, and some may be a bit nervous about being in a doctor’s office. Your smartwatch or other wea…

Even among professional athletes, nobody works out at 100% effort every single week. There are times to rest and recover, often for a week or more, and you and I can apply this principle to our routines, as well. Scaling back your strength training for a short period is called a deload. Here's how to do one, and how to know when you need it. What is a deload?Generally speaking, a deload is a short period of time—maybe a week, but this can vary—in which you do less strength training than usual. That said, people use the word in a few different ways. For some people, a deload is a complete break from training, like a vacation. You take the whole week off, and that’s all t…

Earlier this year, Nvidia announced its new line of 50 Series GPUs with a hot new feature in tow: "Multi Frame Generation." Building on early frame gen tech, these new GPUs allow games to create multiple video frames based on a single frame rendered the normal way. But is that a good thing? Or are these just "fake frames?" Well, it's complicated. On a very basic level, "frame generation" refers to the technique of using deep learning AI models to generate frames in between two frames of a game rendered by the GPU. Your graphics card does the more grindy work of creating "Frame One" and "Frame Three" based on 3D models, lighting, textures, etc., but then frame generation t…

Over the past few decades, “functional” fitness has been seen as everything from a niche practice, to a trend, to a joke. The styles of training that call themselves “functional” vary as well, from bodyweight exercises to Hyrox training. So what is functional fitness really? Functional fitness is more a buzzword than a style of trainingIf you ask somebody who coaches functional fitness, they’ll probably tell you that it’s about doing exercises that will help you in everyday life. Maybe that means doing farmer’s walks with heavy dumbbells so that you’ll be strong enough to carry all the groceries in one trip. Maybe it’s doing hundreds of air squats so you can bend down to …

Hyrox classes are popping up everywhere, and there are a few massive Hyrox races planned in various U.S. cities this year. I am (I say with some trepidation) signed up for one of them. So here's a breakdown of what Hyrox is, why people like it, and what to expect if you decide to give it a try. At the end I'll go through a couple of common questions people have. Hyrox’s origins (and what "Hyrox" means)Hyrox is a young sport, and was started by a company that holds a trademark for the name. In that way it’s a bit like Crossfit, which is also a trademarked name for a specific company, not just a term for a style of working out. It’s been said that Hyrox is short for “hybri…

The more you work out, the fitter you'll get. Your VO2max, sometimes described on wearables as a "cardio fitness" score, is a number that tends to be higher among people who are more cardiovascularly fit. But it's not the only measure of fitness, and you should know what it really means. What VO2max really is (as measured in a lab)Smartwatches and fitness trackers don't actually measure VO2max; they just estimate it. To actually find your VO2max, you'd need to go to an exercise lab and do a test on a treadmill or cycle while hooked up to equipment that measures your heart rate and the air you're exhaling. I did exactly this kind of test to compare my real VO2max to the n…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A healthy dose of cardio is an important part of your exercise routine, and for a lot of us, "zone 2" cardio is going to make up a big chunk of that. Low-intensity cardio—sometimes called LISS or “zone 2”—used to be an underrated form of exercise. It's super trendy now, after spending years on the sidelines while HIIT and lifting-only routines ran the field. But what is zone 2 cardio, exactly? How can you make sure you're doing it right? And is it really so bad if your heart rate drifts into zone 3? What is zone 2 training?Zone 2 training is cardio done at a steady, low intensity. It has benefits for aerobic training (so …

The word “toning” is something of a joke in many fitness circles, because it’s a word that’s thrown around when people mean other things. Sometimes it’s a code word for being thin, as when somebody may promise you that a workout will tone your muscles rather than making you bulky. Other times it’s a moneymaking gambit, as when somebody says you can do their toning exercises at home rather than buying weights or a gym membership instead. To the extent that the word means anything, we talked about this a bit when we discussed the fear of getting bulky. Being “toned” usually means having some muscle definition while still being able to see your body as feminine or thin. "Ton…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Last week I ran the D.C. half-marathon alongside nearly 8,000 other runners. While I generally love running with my Garmin Forerunner 165 (which I've previously reviewed), when I strapped the watch on the morning of the race, I had some reservations. This watch has earned a reputation as a barebones beginner device—and I was worried if it would hold up when it really mattered. Would the GPS remain accurate throughout the 13.1 mile run? Would the pacing features actually help me hit my goal time? After crossing the finish line, I'm happy to report that this entry-level watch met my expectations in almost every way. …

Intrauterine devices, or IUDs, are an extremely effective and convenient form of birth control for many people—but it can also very painful to get one inserted. Current medical guidelines say that your doctor should be discussing pain management with you, and they also give advice to doctors on what methods tend to work best for most people. The newest set of guidelines is from ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. These guidelines actually cover a variety of procedures, including endometrial and cervical biopsies, but today I'll be talking about the IUD insertion portions. And in 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's released ne…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. I usually focus on something a subset of the population gets wrong, so the rest of us can feel smart, but this week, I’m going bigger and broader, and describing something that you, me, and everyone we have ever met has been wrong about in the past, is currently wrong about, and will be wrong about in the future: mistaking correlation for causation. People have been repeating some variation of "correlation is not causation" since at least 1739, when David Hume articulated the concept in A Treatise on Human N…

With the monumental winter storm recently covering most of the nation, now seems a good time to look at some cold and winter weather myths and misinformation. You might be freezing, but there's no excuse for being freezing and ignorant. Myth: A blizzard is a heavy snowstormTechnically, for a storm to be a blizzard, it must have these things: wind speeds of over 35 mph and low visibility (under 1/4 mile) for at least three hours. So you could have blizzard from blowing snow, even if no snow is falling, and you could get a ton of accumulation without it technically ever being a blizzard. (Whether it's a snowstorm or a blizzard likely won't matter to you if you're trapped i…

Football season is in full swing, but these are such strange days that even of game day, Americans can no longer put their political differences aside to enjoy the savage ballet. Yes, the National Football League has once again become a flashpoint in the endless, maddening culture wars—and surprisingly, the NFL seems to be on the "woke" side of the board. Right now, there's a lot of misinformation being spread about the game, the league, and the personalities within. Here are some of the biggest I've encountered. Did Andy Reid refuse pledge to not attend the 2026 Super Bowl over a planned Charlie Kirk tribute?The questionable Facebook pages of both Kollam's Media and Tog…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. To the disappointment of Judgment Day fans, The Rapture did not happen as predicted at the end of September, but keep your fingers crossed for November, when aliens are expected to invade. This one's a way more concrete prediction than the Rapture. Unlike Jesus, we can actually see the alien starship in our telescopes, cleverly disguised as an interstellar comet. And it's not just conspiracy theorists or Joe Rogan Podcast guests sounding the alarm—a Harvard astrophysicist kicked off the whole thing. So hold on to your butt! The ballad of 3I/ATLASBack in July, NASA spotted 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar comet about the size of M…

Smashing Pumpkins' legendary frontman Bill Corgan and confrontational comedian Bill Burr look alike—both have shaved heads, stubbly beards, blue eyes, and similar facial structures. They look so much alike they could be brothers; so much alike that a lot of people think they are brothers. While it's possible, these people are probably wrong. Why people think Bill Corgan and Bill Burr are brothersThe rumor started with Corgan's appearance on Howie Mandel's podcast back in January. On the show, Corgan recounts the following conversation that he said happened a decade prior: My stepmother said to me, "Do you know who Bill Burr is?" Now at that point, I had never heard of Bil…

On Feb. 11, "volunteer IT consultant" Elon Musk appeared at an Oval Office event to discuss the findings of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency. Among other claims, Musk said that a "cursory examination of Social Security” revealed that people who are clearly dead may be receiving social security benefits. “We’ve got people in there that are 150 years old,” Musk said “Now, do you know anyone who’s 150? I don’t, OK… I think they’re probably dead, is my guess, or they should be very famous, one of the two.” In a later post on X, Musk provided some numbers and joked, "Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security." …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Breaking news out of Florida: Lee County deputies reportedly arrested a man recently on the beach near the Sanibel Causeway. The unnamed suspect was found dripping wet and drawing detailed diagrams in the sand. He told officials he'd been kidnapped by dolphins, pulled under the surface, and forced to build an underwater city. The man said the Head Dolphin, "Gerald," communicated with him through clicks, and found some way to help him breathe for several days. You can get more details in this TikTok video that's been viewed over five million times in the last few days: It turns out, unsurprisingly, that this story is fals…

Maybe it's not fair to call a medical diagnosis "trendy," but more and more adults in the U.S. are seeking treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD, once regarded as a childhood disease, has made the transition to adulthood: About 15.5 million adults in the U.S. have been "officially" diagnosed with the disorder, and a growing group of others believe they have ADHD. A lot of them are wrong, but that's OK. Fed by a steady stream of online influencers and pop science, more and more people are self-diagnosing with ADHD, autism, depression, and other mental disorders. Very few of them are qualified to make these diagnoses. While it’s easy to scoff at some…

The totals are in for 2025, and it's been a great year for measles. According to the CDC, the number of cases of the disease identified in the US has risen from 285 in 2024 to 2,144 in 2025, the highest number of measles cases since 1990. We've already seen at least 171 measles cases in the first two weeks of 2026. As you'd probably guess, experts pin the rise in measles to lower vaccination rates. I covered a number of vaccination and measles myths in this column months ago, but there is a new spin on measles that seems to be gaining some traction: A lot of people think contracting measles is good for your heath. “There’s a lot of studies out there that show that if yo…

A few weeks ago, I posted a story about the proliferation of AI-created fake news videos about Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Because I am fair (and balanced!), this week I'm looking at the AI distortion of a hero from the left: Dallas-based congressperson Jasmine Crockett. The real Crockett is sharp, confrontational, and isn't afraid to curse people out. AI-Jasmine Crockett is a folk hero who spends her life STUNNING, DESTROYING, and OBLITERATING various talk show hosts, actors, and political opponents. She took on Bill Maher, humiliated Seth Meyers, made Ellen DeGeneres regret insulting her, and still had time to have a judge arrested. On YouTube. The real Jasmine …

There’s a new star in the firmament of fake new: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Known for her combative press conferences, Leavitt is at the center of a tornado of misinformation that is being spread on both sides of the political spectrum. To set the record straight on two of the most viral fake Leavitt stories: She did not say people will love tariffs if they “avoid woke things like math.” And she did not appear on the Stephen Colbert Show. So if you believed either of these things, you’re wrong, Before you feel too bad for the lies being told about Leavitt, she is okay with spreading fake news of her own, so it's a huge mess. Karoline Leavitt did not s…

Another week, another "gotcha" video debunked. This time it's "Cop Pulls Over Black Judge and Lives To Regret It," a piece of pseudo-documentary street drama that's been viewed millions of times on YouTube and TikTok (and elsewhere, I'm sure). The video is part of a growing online video genre based on documenting cops' confrontations with public, either through police-worn body camera footage or citizen-filmed footage. Some of these videos are real, but many of them are not. Here's the "Cop Pulls Over Judge" video: The tells: bad improv in a Florida parking lotIf you have a smidge of media literacy, it's easy to spot this as fake. The acting is sub-community-the…