(Part 2) Best products from r/lifehacks

I started wearing a clavicle support brace to force myself into better posture and it has worked great. I only wear it until it is uncomfortable (30-60 minutes at various times), but I've noticed even in 3 weeks my posture has improved. Wearing it while walking will help too because you can retrain your brain to walk properly. I can vouch for this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CMV3ATS

In general, if you can make changes to make sitting a luxury - you will reap the rewards. All of the soreness from standing or walking all day will eventually go away - and your default position will be standing/in motion. I've found I don't even like sitting on couches any longer - I just didn't realize that the human body prefers to be in motion - as a developer I thought "screens" and sitting was the norm.

Make sitting a special luxury and everything will change. Even if they won't give you a standing/walking desk - you can control your world once off work. Plus you can stand up at various times throughout the hour. Standing up on its own uses a lot of muscles as you work against gravity. Soon standing up will be easy - which makes mornings great.

The best change towards better posture for me was wearing the clavicle brace while walking on a treadmill at about 3mph (or outside works too) - trade your couch for a small slow treadmill and you'll find watching binge-watching shows to actually make you feel better - the hours fly by and when you walk out into the real world - you find yourself more in control of your body.

Just give it a few weeks and you'll find yourself standing better, walking better - and most importantly feeling better.

Just some thoughts based on my own experiences this past month.

Also: For the first few days - changing posture required me to keep my central core pretty much flexed while standing or in motion - but after a few weeks those muscles get used to it. If you feel uncomfortable with proper posture it will slowly become the norm. After a while, you can tell when you're slouching because it becomes the less-comfortable position. And my stress moved from my shoulders to my core - which seems more capable of handling stress than my neck and shoulders.

A few thoughts off the top of my head...

1. Spend as much time as you can listening to native speakers of the language. Watching Japanese shows, even with English subtitles, is going to really help your pronunciation, colloquial language use, etc. Even better would be conversing with native speakers, but that can be harder to arrange.
   
   
2. This is the textbook series my American university worked from. This is the textbook series my Japanese university worked from. It can be kind of confusing to switch series of books in the middle of learning, so I'd recommend picking one and sticking with it. Learn Japanese was great with a professor guiding me through, but Genki may be better for a solo learner. (Grain of salt: I am not familiar with the earlier Genki books.)
   
   
3. Japanese uses three writing styles: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The first two are both syllabaries, which are kind of like alphabets, only each "letter" stands for a mora (a syllable, more or less). For instance, what we would write in English as ka is expressed in hirigana as a single "letter." They also are used to represent the exact same set of sounds, and some of the "letters" in each syllabary look pretty similar to each other. You'll want to learn hiragana first, then katakana. If you're able to focus on your work, with lots of practice and flashcards, it shouldn't take you more than a month to learn all of them. Once you have the hiragana down, learn katakana. You'll probably find it goes much faster, since so many of the "letters" are similar. Next will come kanji, which are characters whose meaning and pronunciation can change based on context. You will eventually need to learn about 2,000 kanji to be functionally literate in Japanese, but don't panic; even in Japan, they spread the teaching of them over years. Whichever series of books you pick to learn from will introduce kanji to you gradually.
   
   
4. Once you learn to read hiragana, WWWJDIC is going to be your best friend. There are features to look up individual words, search for kanji, and perform text glossing of entire chunks of text. Dictionary entries include a ton of features, including example sentences, verb conjugations, and the ability to examine individual kanji in a word. Additionally awesome if you have an Android smartphone is the app, which comes with a kanji recognizer: you can draw out kanji you don't know, and it will give you its best guess. (Accuracy increases hugely if you're drawing the kanji with the correct number of strokes and stroke order, so the tool gets more useful once you've started learning kanji.) Note, however, that WWWJDIC is a dictionary, not a translation engine; it can give you a bunch of useful vocabulary, but it can't tell you how to use it to construct a sentence.
   
   Source: Japanese was my foreign language in college, which included a semester abroad in Tokyo.

You raise some good points, but your attitude sucks. Anyway, here are the answers you are looking for:

• Champagne and wine yeasts are often bought my amateur brewers by the packet, similar to baker's yeast. "1 package" is the measurement, it's usually equal to 5 grams, which is a bit less convenient to measure because you need a very sensitive scale and it doesn't fill measuring spoons roundly.
  
  
• During fermentation, the yeast will turn the sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide (that's why beer and champagne are fizzy, yeast at work). If the carbon dioxide builds up too much, the bottle it is fermenting in would pop its cork or explode. In order to prevent this, the CO2 needs to escape. Because we can't simply leave the bottle uncapped (bugs love to lay eggs in sweet ferments, and oxygen is detrimental to successful fermentation) we need a way to let the CO2 out without letting anything else get in. That is why you use a fermentation trap, also called a fermentation lock or airlock. It lets CO2 out, and keeps anything else from getting in by way of a water barrier. You can pick them up at brewer supply stores for around $1 each. The one pictured is a 3-piece type, though I prefer the S-types because they allow you to keep track of the fermentation rate by noting how quickly bubbles are escaping more effectively.
  
• Dandelion wine is a country wine, and like most country wine, it's going to have some spices or flavors in it besides the main ingredient. Dandelion wine is traditionally made with citrus to compliment the flavor. Folk-culture food is just like that, you'll have a hard time finding unflavored picked egg recipes for the same reason.
  
  
• Also, I'd like to emphasize that only the petals of dandelions are used. If you go find a dandelion and stare it down for a bit, you'll realize they have very few petals, and they are very light and airy. You need a lot of dandelions to do this, even if you only collect half a gallon of petals, it's a full afternoon activity in a dandelion field with your friends just to collect them.
  
  
  The comic is definitely vague; it ends with "let age", but knowing how to rack and age wine is an art all in itself!
  
  TL;DR: If you know nothing about dandelion wine then this comic is a nice primer to which is actually a fairly simple process. It leaves out some details but you probably shouldn't be making wine from a comic's instructions to begin with.
  
  Source: I make dandelion wine, so I guess you were right.

there's some good stuff in there.


I'd like to add a couple that aren't so well known.

You can actually heat up the plastic water bottles it mentions right on your campfire coals... it's not going to melt, surprisingly.

video


also for clothing, I like they mentioned wool -- really great even if it gets wet... but they didn't mention layers. This is important. You don't want to sweat when it's cold out, so if you're active you gotta shed some layers.


also use your spare grocery bags from home to wrap everything up in, especially clothes... just in case things get wet.


oh and silicone spray is great for water repellent, be it your jacket, boots or tent. Don't buy the "special water repellent stuff", it's just silicone spray. You'll save a couple bucks.


As far as hatchets/knives... you don't need anything big. You might think you do but you really don't. I would recommend a good brand like Benchmade or Kershaw. A regular pocket knife like that is gonna do all you need -- just don't use it as a prybar please.



oh and hobo stoves are pretty cool.

so is a rocket stove -- though the one here is kinda elaborate -- you can dig a hole in the ground and accomplish the same thing you just need the basic shape, airflow. really low fuel and insane concentrated heat from them.


oh and a hoopy frood always knows where his towel's at.

Not this bullshit again.

Look at the first picture again. First, notice the white triangles immediately behind the car. Those are blind spots. Those are spots directly behind the corners of your car where you are undeniably blind, right? They look pretty small, though, so that should be ok, right? Well, there's another problem: they're a hell of a lot bigger than that image suggests. They're big enough to hide a bike, motorcycle, pedestrian, shopping cart, tree, etc. Notice how in the "right" image it shows the shaded area going all the way up to the side of the car? If the shading were actually correct, you'd be able to see the side of your car in your mirror. But they've made it very clear that you shouldn't be able to see the side of your car unless your head is all the way against the window, so that's simply not true.

I've corrected the image a bit to better reflect what this method is trying to get you to do. They're turning your side mirrors - which function perfectly for looking down the adjacent lane to the horizon - into mirrors that will show you a nice view of your blind spot and the guardrail on the side of the road, but nothing else.

But, that's not the worst part. Take a look at the second image again.

I've played with this a bit too. First, I drew red lines to indicate the field of view from the driver's side mirror, and more importantly, the blind spots between the side and rearview mirrors. Those blind spots don't look so big on the freeway. How about backing out of your driveway? Is it even possible for you to see the neighbor kid behind your car before he goes under your tires? How about that shopping cart with the toddler in it?

Next, I decided to see what kind of fun I could have with the rearview mirror by putting you in stopped traffic on the freeway with a big-ass truck directly behind you. Oops, now your rearview mirror sees nothing but a reversed MACK TRUCK logo. Yeah, it looks like a little yellow sedan, but it's actually a big honking truck and you can't see shit. Got to rely on your side mirrors for everything. The lane on the right seems to be moving pretty good. You see that green car about to pass you and you don't see anything behind it, so you're good to go, right? Well, if you had your right-side mirror adjusted as per figure 5, you'd be able to see that purple bus about 20 car lengths behind the green car. That bus is going to overtake you at 45mph in a couple seconds, but you don't even know it exists because you've taken OP's advice and you're absolutely sure that you don't have any blind spots.

The rear view from your side mirrors is infinitely more important than your blind spot in the adjacent lanes. You can look over your shoulder to check your blind sport. If you want to use your mirrors, you need only lean forward a bit. A better solution is to install wedge-shaped blind spot mirrors on the bottom inner corners of your side mirrors, giving you the same view that OP is trying to give you but without sacrificing the intended purpose of your side mirrors.

tl;dr: This method looks good at first glance, and it works well in light traffic, free of motorcycles on the interstate. Everywhere else, this method kills your situational awareness and makes you a greater danger to everyone behind you, especially pedestrians.

I used these as a welder.
Ran a hotspot on my phone to run a cheap prepaid phone with headphone jack in my welding jacket. Then used safety pins to route the wire inside my welding jacket. They were one of the best things I had to help keep me sane when I did production welding.
Plugfones Basic Earplug-Earbud Hybrid - Blue Cable/Yellow Plugs https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083E7T7C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_UA7hDbQ3DN3BA

But why subject your child to a suffocation risk like this in the first place? You can get well-rated play yards for $55. Is your child's safety really worth less than $35?

I think poopyboobies is talking about gliders which go beneath legs like drink coasters - they ease the movement of furniture, protecting the floor - they don't keep large furniture from moving

http://www.stayfurnituregrippers.com/ You might try grippers - but any you get in the dollar store are not likely to work well

They also sell gripping rug-pads for beneath carpets; putting an area rug/carpet beneath your bed might help - they even sell some in ultra-gripping fabric.
http://www.amazon.com/Grip-It-Non-Slip-Surface-Floors-10-Feet/dp/B003TDQQIA

I use this stuff and it works amazingly: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0000AY3SR?pc_redir=1396539178&robot_redir=1

I have a bottle in my trunk, and use it to clean friends and family cars. It takes a very small amount to make the headlight look brand new. I've had the same bottle for a couple years.

Get better sound quality, different sized plugs and wrap around the ear tug safe chords.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004PNZFZ8/ref=pd_aw_sbs_1?pi=SS115

I use these green produce bags that definitely seem like a gimmick but actually work very well at extending the life of my produce. http://www.amazon.com/Debbie-Meyer-GreenBags-Freshness-Preserving-Storage/dp/B00I4V1U06

Evriholder FURemover Broom with Squeegee made from Natural Rubber, Multi-Surface and Pet Hair Removal, Telescoping Handle that Extends from 3 ft to 6 ft https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EFDOOA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_EbDLBbRVQB1H5

Something like this

Here's the real lifehack: https://www.amazon.com/GE-Polarized-Adapter-Install-54276/dp/B002DN6QX2/

Around Christmas, remove your porch light bulbs and put these in instead. Run your lights from there, and it obviously works from your normal porch light switch inside of the house. Unless you have a ton of lights, these work perfectly.

Stasher Bags are great, they come in 2 sizes and will be releasing a larger half gallon size very soon

https://www.amazon.com/Stasher-Reusable-Silicone-Sandwich-Clear/dp/B01DZQT9CU

There are long handled squeegees that are perfect for getting dog and cat hair off of fabric surfaces and out of carpetFURemover

Invest in a peanut butter stirrer.

Bought one for my dad, who is very particular about his peanut butter, and he loves the thing.

I tried this and didn't like the finished product. The fit was okay, but they didn't end up sealing nearly as well as my shure se215's

Same goes for making hard plastic molds-- I tried Instamorph.

You may actually benefit from one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Witmer-Company-Peanut-Butter-Mixer/dp/B000A3I3BA

A anti-slip rug mat can help. But what really fixed it for me was a futon cover that had sewn-in straps that tied onto the futon frame -- I bought mine from the futon store.

Could try something like these. https://www.amazon.com/Plugfones-Basic-Earplug-Earbud-Hybrid-Yellow/dp/B0083E7T7C

These too will double or triple the shelf life of your vegetables. I imagine adding a paper towel to greens in these bags will only increase it more.

Meguiar's G12310 PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish - 10 oz. by Meguiar's http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000AY3SR/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_PiNyub18GBBVM

This stuff works wonders, but it takes a few coats though.

Much cheaper:

http://www.amazon.com/Evriholder-SW-250I-FR-AMZ-FURemover-Broom/dp/B000EFDOOA/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1458309948&sr=1-2&keywords=rubber+broom