Cracked.com says that it is bad to idle your engine.
 

Are they professors of explanation or have they finally lost it?

[Did they ever have it in the first place?]

I haven't paid attention to them in a long time--or Shouty or Kevin GermanLastName.

I don't pay much attention to The King of Random, either. I don't spend much time trying to entertain myself anymore and Kevin gives four updates a day on free government money.

He has gained tons of popularity in the last 5 months, but there will not be any additional free money anytime soon.

5 Popular Life Hacks That Are Total Lies drew me in. Why? I call them "Hack tips." They almost never work. I searched The King of Random for "Life hack" and so far I counted 24 times they released their own tips and 6 times they tested viral videos.

I stopped counting and kept scrolling; it just kept showing more videos.

Hundreds of them.

I fear that they consider that most of their videos are life hacks

Which hack tips did Cracked debunk?

1. "Doing Literally Anything from Those "30 Second Hack" Videos You See Everywhere." It seems like hack tips are like get-rich-quick schemes--they only make money for the creators, who put just enough effort into them to trick people to waste time and money. When the King of Random tried out hack tips they always found some that were real, if unimpressive, and they said there was just enough truth to lend the rest just enough credibility.

2. "Idling Your Car on Cold Mornings." This is why all of us are here, right? They say that you warm up your car because you wake up to a world of snow and ice, but instead of saying "Of course you want clear windows and a warm cabin!" they claim that we are endeavoring to avoid having an engine "liable to stall when you're halfway down the street."
I am pretty sure they did lose it, if they ever had it.
They said that only applies to carbureted engines and the last one was produced in 1990.
I am sure that isn't true in every country.
'That means unless you've traveled back to 1984 to find Sarah Connor, it's not for you."
They are occasionally mildly humorous.
"You see, when you leave your car to idle, it takes waaay longer to warm up (because it's not actively driving), and so your car will wind up pumping a massive amount of gas into the engine."

Source?! Can anyone find me a source?! They certainly didn't provide one!
I believe that engines use more fuel until they warm up, but "Massive?"
My 2.5L Forester used .28 gallons per hour at idle, but I doubt that was cold. How much more is massively more? Ten times?
"Yeah, I idled my car to warm it up, but apparently that uses a massive amount of gas! It ran out in my driveway! Now I can't get to work and have no choice but to play Minecraft all day!"

"If your engine starts overflowing with gas, that'll break your car -- and even if it doesn't overflow, there's potential for gas to strip the oil off of the engine's cylinders and pistons. That not only reduces their lifetime but could cause them to seize up at a moment's notice because, duh, they have no oil."

How much is one "Potential?" One in a million?

So you're telling me there's a chance!

"The best way to warm your car up is to drive it."

At least they got that part right!

3. "Putting Toothpaste on Acne." I never heard of toothpaste on acne. Is their major demographic teenagers?

4. "Making Your Own Sunscreen." I have not heard of making your own sunscreen either, but Pinterest is a place for uselss people to try to impress each other with how they waste time.

5. "Wearing All Your Clothes to Avoid Airline Baggage Fees." I actually did this for a weekend trip. I bought tickets through Allegiant, a small airline out of a small airport. The flights were cheap, parking was free, and security was faster, but when I bought my tickets they kept offering to sell me services that I took for granted with real airlines.

Like free carry-ons.

I had paid to check luggage and that was lame, but carry-ons?!

I probably should have just paid whatever the fee was, but I bought cargo shorts, stuffed my toiletries into the pockets, and wore them and a t-shirt under my suit, into which I stuffed socks and undergarments. It was warm and uncomfortable, but fine, while they mentioned a singer who wore twelve layers of clothing, collapsed, and required oxygen.

The thing is that security had me remove my suit and empty all of my pockets.

That was when I learned of Scottevests, but I did not have $200 for luggage that you wear, nor did I have time to wait for it to arrive.

It is possible that my entire trip cost less than that!

The TSA agent said that he saw attorneys wearing 5 suits at once.

I only recommend that for an Anne Frank situation.

Have you tried any hack tips that were worthwhile? Have you wasted your time and money on any?

As long as it doesn't become a safety threat, some of those hacks are acceptable. Those get-rich-quick schemes on the other hand I always take them with a grain of salt.


I remember when a '92 Fiat Uno with a carburettor-fed engine was totaled and my father picked a '98 Opel Corsa with multi-port injection as a replacement for it. Even though EFI is supposed to decrease warm-up times, my father still used to keep the engine on for a while to warm right after the start. Always with the garage door open and nobody inside.


I had a lot of acne, heard of toothpaste on it but never tried. Makes me wonder if I would've spent less that I did on medical treatments for acne...


IIRC most of those baby ointments have compounds that can provide some sunscreening.


On cold weather I wouldn't bother too much about it. Or maybe getting a tunic similar to the ones that are widely used by men in the Middle East, and fitting it with a lot of pockets inside and outside. Might not be so much more expensive than a good suitcase :D

1. Buy a "Man dress."
2. Buy a vest.
3. Roll up all of your clothing and fasten it to the vest with electrical wires. Attach a clock so you always know what time it is.
4. ????
5. Profit!

How the heck are these people getting through screening at the airport? At Reno I am having issues with composite toed safety shoes, much more with the genuine steel toed ones. Won't even discuss my leatherman living in checkin luggage.

Had a guy in my unit with a shaving profile whose hobby was walking around our post in a man dress carrying AK. We kept waiting for one of the no-talent ass clowns from BN to panic and light him up, but nobody did.

My Leatherman is like a safety blanket. It's generally the reason I have a checked bag when I fly, although a couple years ago we had too tight a connection so I mailed the checked bag ahead. Good thing, too, because we got to the gate when they were done boarding, but hadn't closed the door. A checked bag wouldn't have made it in time.

My Leatherman's 2 most memorable moments were on the USS Intrepid and the CN Tower. Security at the Intrepid made me check it, and they weren't all that prepared to check things. I guess they thought the can opener was a threat to a 2.5" armored hull tied to a dock. At the CN Tower, some guy who spoke less English than I seak French asked me why I had it. I was floored by the question and just said it was so useful to have that I always had it with me. He responded "Utilité"? And when I nodded he just waved me through. Rational security guards are rare, but I met one once.

A few years ago, 2 guys dressed up that way tried to pull a fake bomb prank inside a transit bus in a city where I lived for a while. Didn't turn out so well...

My leatherman saw the Constitution, and the Queens summer palace. For a while I used to religiously degauss it and it would pass through metal detectors. I cannot, however, get people to accept that it is an accommodation device to overcome my Carpal tunnel in both hands.

When one of our mechanics returned from R&R he told us that he couldn't convince security that his Gerber was part of his uniform.

It's an emotional support multitool.

Or buy a heated motorcycle vest. My wife and I have them and they always get pulled for security check when we fly and ride.

I can see why. The x-ray shows a vest - with a series of wires running through it, with this push button attached:

https://smhttp-ssl-26404.nexcesscdn....8/188_3c_6.jpg