top 10s of 2010

December 9, 2010 11:27 AM

Top 10s of 2010. Each Saturday, we pore through our favorite tips and tricks to find 10 great hacks surrounding any subject, from food and thumb drives to browsers and Wi-Fi. Here are our most popular Top 10s of 2010.
posted by nickyskye (15 comments total)

The most amusing thing about this is that most of those articles are from the beginning/middle of the year, and virtually all of them are out of date by now.

(Also, it's a Lifehacker link, which means Gawker, which means rampant SEO, and kind of bad writing)
posted by schmod at 11:42 AM on December 9, 2010

Yeah, have to agree that single-link-Lifehacker is kind of weak...what about a FPP with your top 10 "top 10" lists of 2010 from different sites?
posted by Pomo at 11:51 AM on December 9, 2010

tl;dr - too busy working on the latest GTD program and making coffee with my chemex and japanese pour pot
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 12:00 PM on December 9, 2010 [5 favorites]

Less than a third of the way through December and we've already been presented with several "best of 2010" lists. It's not just Xmas promotions that seem to come earlier each year.
posted by fredludd at 12:09 PM on December 9, 2010

"DIY FOOD PROJECTS" makes me deeply sad inside.


7. Fry Some KFC-Style Chicken at Home

6. Make Fresh Bread Without a Bread Maker

This is not innovation. And seriously? DIY food? That post was more depressing than the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Take that 2010.
posted by Stagger Lee at 12:13 PM on December 9, 2010 [4 favorites]

the word "hack," i swear to God.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:20 PM on December 9, 2010 [7 favorites]

Top 10 Ways to Wipe Your Butt:

1. Toilet Paper
2. Baby wipes
3. Newspaper
4. Leaves
5. One dollar bills
6. Five dollar bills
7. Ten dollar bills
8. Twenty dollar bills
9. Fifty dollar bills
10. Hundred dollar bills

...who knew you could "hack" butt-wiping?
posted by litnerd at 12:35 PM on December 9, 2010

I dunno, I actually like Lifehacker. In that one Gawker blog's case, the things I see there that I don't already know are sufficiently interesting enough to keep it above my disconnect annoyance level. (That is, the point where something willfully bugs me enough that I close it in disgust. Here's a hint to any webmasters who might be reading this: if your page immediately plays advertising sounds at me, that level starts out at over 100%. That crap is one of the reasons I don't watch TV anymore.)
posted by JHarris at 12:54 PM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of the time that I hacked my car with gasoline so I could drive places.
posted by Dmenet at 12:58 PM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

For all its faults, Lifehacker is the best excuse for the existence of the Gawker Media Network. Lotsa usefulness if you avoid the ~20% really stupid items (hacking food? no) and the ones that don't apply to your lifestyle (just try not to obsess over WHY they don't apply).

And for the annoyance of early year-end lists, that's another thing you can blame the music/radio industry for. DECADES ago, Billboard re-aligned the 'year' for its music charts to MidNovember-thru-MidNovember to give itself plenty of time to make a 'year-end special issue' and deliver it to radio stations to give them plenty of time to produce a 'year-end special show' and take two weeks off for Christmas. Every other media entity has been jealous of that schedule and slowly working toward doing it themselves since the '80s.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:03 PM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

There are nineteen of them. Couldn't they have cut that down to ten?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:31 PM on December 9, 2010

Top 10 Ways to Wipe Your Butt:
1. Toilet Paper
2. Baby wipes
3. Newspaper
4. Leaves
5. One dollar bills
6. Five dollar bills
7. Ten dollar bills
8. Twenty dollar bills
9. Fifty dollar bills
10. Hundred dollar bills The cat. (extreme sports enthusiasts only)
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:52 PM on December 9, 2010

I'm in the process of setting up a new, smaller house.. the catbox hacks and shoe rack were both perfect!!!!

Thanks, I owe you one nicky!
posted by HuronBob at 5:47 PM on December 9, 2010

I'd like to see a list of the top neurosis and personality defects which Lifehacker's suggestions help fuel:

1. ADD - never mind what you are supposed to be doing...here's a new gesture-driven screensaver that you can spend all day configuring...
2. Paranoia - and a method for encrypting your files which is resistant even to attacks by any quantum computers the CIA might have up their sleeves to track you.
3. OCD - we show you how to classify your MP3 collection by the vowel sounds in the composer's forename
4. Kleptomania - and how to organise your day so that you have more time to watch your multi-terrabyte collection of torrented movies
5. Multiple Personality Disorder - because why else would you really need to be able to boot into 3 separate operating systems
6. Narcissism - and writing comments, beneath our articles about how none of these problems apply to your perfect world
7. Gluttony - our favourite pizzas can be yours too
8. Credulousness because we wanted to tell you how our lives were radically improved by cleaning up our registry settings and buying the stuff we link to on the convenient sidebar.
posted by rongorongo at 5:36 AM on December 10, 2010

the word "hack," i swear to God.

I only keep a few favourites so I can find stuff like this easily at a time of need. About 200 people agree with you.
posted by ersatz at 2:21 PM on December 10, 2010