Evil Week 2017: The Complete Series


We spent the previous week exploring nefarious life hacks that can make life better for you but worse for others. How you choose to use that information is up to you! Here is the complete series – from printing your own parking tickets to frying an annoying co-worker’s motherboard.

To put it mildly, Evil Week is a pretty decisive event on Lifehacker. Half our readers appreciate the knowledge provided by these hacks – both for purposes good and ill. Others think we’re being irresponsible or horrible trolls. We’re keen to hear what you think in the comments, so let us know how you feel below!

How To Blow Off Weddings, Funerals And Other Major Milestones

In an ideal world, maybe you’d love to spend a large portion of your free time attending the weddings, birthdays and other life cycle events of your nearest and dearest. But life, work, and geographical boundaries often get in the way, making it a tricky a proposition to attend every single milestone event for every single close friend and family member.

How Customers Exploit Self-Service Checkouts To Save Money

Self service checkouts are a great invention. Sure, they may have taken a few jobs away but gone are the days where you have to make idle chit-chat with a not so fresh-faced teen while they slipped groceries into a planet-destroying plastic bag. Now, you can do it all yourself! Scan, bag, pay and leave. Which means the system is rife for exploitation.

Top Ten Careers That Attract Psychopaths

If you’ve been in the workplace for any extended period of time, chances are you’ve encountered a psychopath at some point in your career. Contrary to popular belief, not all psychopaths are serial killers or axe murderers. In fact, only a small majority of psychopaths are actually violent at all.

How To ‘Fake’ Charisma Like Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon may be a polarising figure on the internet, but he can bring in the ratings. Some believe he’s fake, while others are drawn to his charisma. This video breaks down how to emulate that charisma on your own.

Negotiate A Higher Salary With A Sneaky Joke

Many of us avoid negotiating because it seems so tricky and so confrontational. You don’t want to miss out on that money, though. One easy, non-confrontational way to haggle your salary? Make a ridiculous joke.

Make This Tiny Violin To Play When Your Friends Start Whining

When your friends express hurt feelings over something you deem trivial, it is appropriate to take the piss out of them by miming a violin performance. If you want to take your mockery to the next level, this video tutorial explains how to make tiny violins out of paddle pop sticks.

This YouTube Playback Extension Will Slowly Drive Your Enemies Mad

You might be unfortunate enough to have an annoying coworker in your vicinity. You know, the one that talks about how much he loves eating quiche for breakfast. Let’s call him Chad. While you (probably) can’t put Chad’s headphones in jello to get back at him for pinning last week’s soccer loss on your bum knee, you can slowly drive Chad mad where it hurts the most: in his precious YouTube goofing-off time.

How To Instantly Fry A Motherboard

The USB Killer is infamous (but ingenious). Plug it in, and within seconds your computer is dead, motherboard fried thanks to a high voltage dose of electricity, along with any other nearby components. This video shows you how it works, but the takeaway is clear: Never connect random USB devices to your computer.

How To Tell Someone They Smell Bad, Anonymously

How can you break the news to someone who smells bad? You could be honest and compassionate, sitting down with your stinky loved one to broach the topic. But if you just want to drop a truth bomb and run away, we have a few suggestions.

How To Fake ‘Before And After’ Fitness Photos

We’ve all seen those transformation photos of people going from pufferfish-like bellies to enviously defined abs. You may have mused, “I wish I could get to that ‘After’ picture, too.” Oh, but you can. Without actually being close to that great a shape, in fact. It’s not honest, but marketers do it, and hot damn, you will look fabulous.

How To Lie To Yourself And Others With Statistics

Misusing statistics is one of the most powerful ways to lie. Normally, we teach you how to avoid misinterpreting statistics, but knowing how numbers are manipulated can help you spot when it happens. To that end, we’re going to show you how to make data say whatever the hell you want to back up any wrong idea you have.

Get People To Do What You Want With These 11 Clever Psychological Tricks

While it’s not always important to get what you want, it sure feels good sometimes. This handy cheat sheet explains 11 different ways you can influence others to give yourself a win every once in a while.

Build Your Own Wi-Fi Drone Disabler With A Raspberry Pi

If you’re looking for an interesting project to work on this weekend, you can turn a Raspberry Pi into a device that will drop Wi-Fi controlled drones right out of the sky with just a tap of your finger.

Eight Sneaky Tricks To Get Your Children To Eat Healthy Food

A child’s diet should be high in fruit and vegetables, high in complex carbohydrates such as brown bread, brown pasta and brown rice and relatively low in fat and sugary foods. It should also be low in salt. But as many of us know, getting children to eat what is good for them can be easier said than done. So how do you get your child to eat a healthy diet?

Three Of The Vilest Ways To Manipulate People Into Saying ‘Yes’

You can do a lot of things to be more persuasive, from learning better ways to communicate to more shady manipulation techniques. Here are some of the most evil ways to get someone to say “yes”.

Things You Can Do On The Dark Web That Aren’t Illegal

The dark web isn’t just for buying drugs and hiring assassins. It’s a massive network of websites and communities that exists outside of mainstream internet culture, and there’s plenty to do on the dark web without breaking any laws – from book clubs to crisis preparation.

Avoid Large People On Trains By Sitting In The Upper Middle Carriage
There’s nothing worse than being squished against the doughy flesh of a fellow train traveler who is clearly too large for their seat. We’re not here to judge. Maybe they have emotional issues. Maybe it’s their glands.

Prank Your Friends With Google Home And IFTTT

Voice assistants are still dumb computers programmed to provide you answers to questions and control your Spotify playlist. But just once, I’d love my Google Home to help me out with a joke or two when my brother comes over. After all, what’s the use of a voice assistant if it can’t help you roast your friends? With the help of IFTTT (If This Then That), make your voice assistant say whatever you want (within reason) and pull a few pranks on unsuspecting friends and family. Or, if you’re me, get it to deliver some choice insults to the people you love most.

Ten Ways To Screw With Someone’s Car

We all love some good ol’ fashioned tomfoolery. Especially when it comes to cars. Here’s ten great ways to mess with someone’s car without damaging it, as suggested by readers on the internet. (You really are an evil bunch, y’know that?)

Drive A Programmer Nuts With This Diabolical Syntax Script

This is one of those pranks for someone who’s enough of your friend to not murder you afterwards, but also kind of deserves a little pain. The Mimic script changes characters in a code file to alternative characters that look the same to human eyes, but completely screw up the syntax. I pity the victim.

How To Manipulate People Ethically

Manipulation is generally a bad skill to use to get what you want, but sometimes it’s justifiable when you have a noble cause. Perhaps you’re trying to get someone to live a healthier lifestyle or enjoy an activity with you. When other tactics fail you and it’s time to resort to a little manipulative behaviour, here are some tricks you can use to get what you want without being completely abandoning your ethics.

Drive A Programmer Nuts With This Diabolical Syntax Script

This is one of those pranks for someone who’s enough of your friend to not murder you afterwards, but also kind of deserves a little pain. The Mimic script changes characters in a code file to alternative characters that look the same to human eyes, but completely screw up the syntax. I pity the victim.

Gifts To Give To The Kids Of Parents You Hate

When you have kids, people give you gifts. It’s wonderful! There are sweet little blankets, jolly jumpers and charming little dolls – all very nice presents from generous relatives and friends.

Don’t Have A Train Ticket? Just Chill Out In The Toilet, M8

Fair warning: This hack is not for the faint of heart. But if you can’t afford a train ticket (or are shockingly cheap with no self-respect, like me) this ticket inspector avoidance strategy could be worth pursuing.

How To Plagiarise Your Way To A Successful Blogging Career [Infographic]

According to some old Bible verse, you reap what you sow. Alternatively, you can hop over your neighbour’s fence and reap the crap out of their tasty, tasty harvest. They sow, you reap. Everybody wins!

How To Get Personal Training Sessions For Free

Good health is a truly priceless thing, but maintaining a decent level of fitness – especially in big cities – can cost a pretty penny. Gym memberships in particular can hit your wallet hard. And personal training sessions? Forget about it: Those can run over $100 an hour, easy, and that’s often on top of a gym’s monthly membership fee. That’s fine, though – because you don’t have to pay a dime if you play your cards right.

How To Never Tell Anyone Anything About Yourself

Even if you aren’t an especially shy or guarded person, there are a lot of reasons why you might find yourself in a withholding place from time to time. You could be in a personally low or tenuous spot with work, your relationship, or life in general.

Diplomacy: The Most Evil Board Game Ever Made

There are great number of truly evil board games. But there is a game that’s the evilest of them all. Diplomacy.

Strategically Use Newsletters To Get A Free Bar Crawl On Your Birthday

No one should buy their own drinks on their birthday. And besides getting freebies from your obliging friends, plenty of bars will give you a free birthday drink or two if you sign up to their newsletter. If you plan ahead, you can turn that free drink into a free bar crawl.

How To ‘Win’ At Social Media After A Breakup

Ever since that first “Dear John” letter was delivered by carrier pigeon, breakups have sucked, but social media makes them suck harder. Even if you block, hide and unfriend, you can still be attacked by an unexpected photo of your ex posted on the accounts of mutual friends. Rather than be the victim of such virtual hostility, you should harness the power of social media to fight back, and prove to everyone that you are doing just fine, thanks.

Ask LH: How Can I Access Blocked Piracy Sites And US Netflix?

Dear Lifehacker, Is it possible to get around the government’s blocking of illegal torrenting and streaming sites? Also, what about US Netflix? As far as I can tell, it should be legal to access this content if you pay for it. Thanks, Honest Pirate

Dick Moves For Winning Board Games

Board games are a safe place to play out conflicts with your family and friends, with the understanding that once the game is over, everyone is on good terms again. That also makes them the perfect place to take out all your petty frustrations and revenge fantasies, under the guise of good fun. Here’s how to destroy your opponents with dick moves that will feel like cheats, but are all sanctioned by the rule book.

How To Make A Surprisingly Lethal Punch

The success of most parties hinges on the quality and amount of booze served and, while serving a big bowl of punch is easier on the host or hostess, serving a punch that people will keep coming back to it is a little trickier. A good punch is so balanced that one might not even realise there was any ethanol floating around in there, and we’re going to show you how to make a really good one. (You should, of course, always tell people if you’re serving them booze.)

The Ultimate Guide To Paying Less At Starbucks

The best way to save money on Starbucks is to make your coffee at home. The second best way is to buy it somewhere cheaper. But the third best way is to hack your Starbucks order to pay less for the same (or similar) drink. Some hacks are innocent; others less so. Here’s a compilation of the best Starbucks hacks from over the years.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

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