A few years ago, a Google employee sent an email to thousands of her co-workers: What if for six weeks straight, you spent one night per week without technology? The email was from Laura Mae Martin, Google’s executive productivity adviser, a role that, among other things, was created to help staff members foster healthier relationships…
In a public library, styling a bookshelf is easy: Just fill it with books. At home, a bookcase needs to do a lot more than hold books. So how do the pros do it? Start by thinking of your shelves as a kind of three-dimensional wallpaper that adds visual interest to a room. The things…
With everything a smartphone can do these days, it’s often easy to overlook one of the device’s most basic functions: voice calls. Communicating by telephone has become more complicated in a world of robocalls and automated voice trees, but your phone may already have the tools to make talking to people (or not) easier. Here…
Decades ago, your vacation most likely began with a visit to a travel agent, who relied on a combination of expertise and connections to find the best deals on plane tickets, hotels, tours and more. Since then, the internet has turned most of us into our own travel agents, and artificial intelligence software is making…
“Throw the keys through the kiosk’s open window. We’ll get the car when we open later”: Those slightly unorthodox drop-off instructions I once received from a Hertz manager in Croatia illustrate some of the differences U.S. travelers might encounter when renting a car abroad. It pays to familiarize yourself with the local policies and protocols…
Maybe it was the wintry morning when I stepped out of the carpool van, hit an icy patch and went skidding on my backside toward the doors of my middle school as my classmates looked on. Or the day I stood on my front porch waving goodbye to a friend and watched in terror as…
One video opens with a large white leather handbag covered in the signature LV logo of Louis Vuitton. Within milliseconds, a hand with a switchblade swoops in and slashes a huge gash in the side of the bag before tearing it apart at its seams. In another, the distinctive red sole of Christian Louboutin is…
