PHYSICAL

• Dr. Pepper Zero: With the emerging evidence that artificial sweeteners aren’t all that bad for you, I can now engage in diet soda without restraint. Coke Zero, Crush Zero, A&W Zero…they’re all incredible, but there’s nothing more refreshing than the spicy cherry goodness of Dr. Pepper.
• Patagonia Black Hole 40L: This is the perfect duffel bag (so good I own two). It’s carry-on compliant for most planes, has ergonomic shoulder straps, and is extremely durable. I keep one fully loaded with climbing gear for bouldering days in Squamish, and another “clean” bag that I use for travel. The 40L bag has more than enough space for international travel. It’s stylish and comes in a range of colours (although I prefer the black with rainbow print).
• Matfer Bourgeat Black Carbon Steel Pan 11.75″: This pan inspires me to be a better cook. It’s my daily driver and is seasoned enough where I can make an omelette without any sticking. The Matfer pan has a welded handle without rivets, allowing for a completely smooth cooking surface. It’s lighter (and heats faster) than a cast-iron, is oven safe (at reasonable temperatures), and avoids the potential health impact of nonstick pans.

DIGITAL

• Instapaper: I have a tough time reading news articles (mostly movie reviews if I’m being honest) on my laptop. Instapaper lets me save articles without ads within the app, which I can then access on my Kobo. I can read without distraction on my handheld reader while I’m on the go or using a cardio machine at the gym.
• The New York Times Cooking app: This has been essential in my cooking journey. I love that I can save recipes that I enjoy or want to cook in my recipe box. Additionally, the search function lets me choose dishes based on time investment or ingredients that I’m keen on playing around with. Learning how to cook with the NYT app has been low-stress, easy and a ton of fun.

INVISIBLE

I’ve always had a predisposition towards delayed gratification and type II fun. As a result, I haven’t felt much type I fun or joy in my life. I recently had an experience of pure pleasure drinking the best coffee of my life in a Parisian cafe (shout out to Joachim at Substance), which led to a lightbulb moment. I can still strive and work hard, but experiencing bliss, awe and wonder is also important. That was a bit of a ramble, but the TL;DR of my invisible now is chasing moments of simple joy just for the sake of it

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Parent Hacks: 134 Genius Shortcuts for Life with Kids
by Asha Dornfest
Workman
2016, 272 pages, 5 x 0.8 x 7 inches

Buy on Amazon

In 2005 Asha Dornfest, a new parent, launched the blog Parent Hacks as a way for parents to share tips that make raising young children less nerve-racking. This book has the 134 best tips from the blog. Here are a few examples from the On the Go section:

• #116 Write your phone number on your kid’s belly.
• #113 Strap ankle weights to a lightweight stroller to keep it from tipping.
• #110 Line your car’s cup holders with cupcake liners.
• #118 Use adhesive bandages to baby-proof hotel room outlets.

Other tip themes include pregnancy and postpartum, sleep, food and mealtime, organizing time and space, and getting dressed. Craighton Berman’s clear illustrations make it easy to understand most tips at a glance. If you or someone you know is pregnant, this book is essential reading. – Mark Frauenfelder

A CHILDREN’S BOOK OF MAPS CRAMMED WITH FUN FACTS ABOUT THE U.S. STATES

The 50 States: Explore the U.S.A. with 50 fact-filled maps
by Gabrielle Balkan
Wide Eyed Editions
2015, 112 pages, 11.5 x 13.8 x 0.8 inches

Buy on Amazon

Pack your bags, gas up the car and hit the highway! You’ll want to plan a road trip this summer after perusing The 50 States, a children’s atlas crammed with fun facts about every state from sea to shining sea. This carefully detailed book contains over fifty quirky, infographic maps that highlight famous people, state icons, key facts, regional spotlights and moments to remember of every state. Flip to the back of the book and you’ll also find a helpful, detailed index, a listing of all the presidents, and each and every state flag unfurling across the pages.

If the delightfully appealing cover didn’t give it away, you’ll know as soon as you flip to the introduction that this gigantic atlas is no ordinary collection of maps. Author Gabrielle Balkan insists that readers not invest in these detailed, sprawling maps as geographically correct renditions but as wonderful canvases to narrate the rich history and culture of the states they represent. You’ll journey from the shores of Alaska, populated by Kodiak bears, to our nation’s capital, where Ben’s Chili Bowl nabs a spot in history right alongside the columns and fluttering flag of the White House. Children and adults alike will come away from the book not only with obscure facts about our nation’s history, but with a new appreciation of the amazing and diverse cultures that spill across the pages of The 50 States and that make our homeland so unique. – Kaz Weida

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Maximize contents held in tube containers

Tube Wringer

My new favorite tool is the Tube Wringer, from Gill Mechanical.

From their website: “The Tube-Wringer efficiently squeezes the contents from tubes of caulk, glue, medical compounds, adhesives, and toothpaste. Nearly indestructible, the Tube-Wringer will last a lifetime under normal use and pay for itself in short order.”

In addition to sqeezing every little bit out of just about any tube, the squeezed part is left with a zig-zag texture so future usage doesn’t undo the squeezing. Tubes are left efficiently squeezed, and cool looking. My only problem is that I wish I had more partially-used tubes available because it’s so satisfying to squeeze every last bit out of them. — Sally Rosenthal

Stabilizing plastic shim

Wobble Wedge

As a grad student, I spend a lot of time working on a laptop in coffee shops and living in old houses. What that means: sitting at notoriously-wobbly cafe tables and shimming furniture on uneven old wood floors. Wobble Wedges are small, clear plastic shims with a ridged surface that are invaluable in both instances. Since they weigh just an ounce or two, I always keep a couple in my computer bag (better than jamming newspaper under a coffee shop table). I usually go to a coffee shop twice a week, sometimes more, and find myself having to use them about 30 percent of the time. Sometimes I forget and leave them behind, but they’re cheap enough it’s no big deal. At home, these also work great because they are clear enough to be almost invisible. They are plenty strong enough for a fully-loaded bookshelf and, in the five years I’ve been using them, I’ve never had one break down or crack. Losing them is another story: I once used some to shim a pedestal sink and never saw them again. But the sink never wobbled either! — Donovan Finn

Better door closer

Touch n’ Hold

If you have a storm door or screen door, you probably have a pneumatic device that closes it. And the device has a little washer thing that will hold the door open if you put down your bags, and the baby, and let the dog go free while you fiddle it down the bar, so it can jam against the piston. It’s a hassle.

The Touch n’ Hold is a device that makes this a happier moment. The Touch n’ Hold door closer lets you set the door open with a simple tap of your toe or elbow. Then once you’ve got all your stuff inside, just nudge the door (not the thing) open a little more and it will go back into closing mode.

I use it every day, and it always makes me think of Cool Tools. — Thomas T. Ballantine

Stick-ons, boosts visibility

SOLAS Marine Reflective Tape

We’ve been using 3M’s SOLAS reflective tape for several years. It was designed for the Coast Guard to use on life jackets, so you know it has to be tough and withstand time, bad weather and wet conditions (SOLAS = safety of life at sea). It is a bit expensive, but it is the brightest and most durable stuff I’ve ever found. We use it everywhere and have put in on just about everything: garbage cans, walking sticks, jackets, kayaks, a bicycle, a stroller, a trailer, traffic cones, automobile door jams (so oncoming traffic sees me right away), the trunk of my car (an instant safety device if I get stuck on the side of the road) and the car’s mudguards. The strips on our mudguards — which take a lot of abuse! — are still sticking after more than seven years. Now that I’ve seen how effective it is, I really think it should be a law that all cars come stocked with reflective stripping on door jams. — Jeff Ellis

The Best Rat Trap

Snap-E Rat Trap

There are certain less-than-glamorous homesteading chores that I am really good at. Shoveling, doing dishes, and trapping rats. Sigh.

Rats around here are not the loathsome Norwegian variety, but rather wood rats, or pack rats, which look like a big mouse — kinda cute. In the woods, rats build pyramids of twigs 3 feet or so high — rat architecture — always in secluded spots, so you have to be bushwacking to come upon them. In semi-rural areas like mine they cruise human habitations for easy pickins. One year I trapped over 40.

For years I used the standard wooden Victor traps and would put peanut butter in a little piece of plastic (with punched holes), tied to the trigger with baggie ties. Then I started sheet-metal-screwing a 1/2″ copper pipe cap to the trigger, which I filled with peanut butter.

I went through maybe 4 types of other traps until I discovered these. They have a bait cup so the rat has to tug at it, thereby releasing spring—plenty strong enough to ensure fatality.

I’m writing this after getting one last night that had been eluding me for a week. Outwitted by a rat night after night.

Method: I washed 3 traps (getting rid of scent), smooshed some bacon in the cups, surrounded by smears of Skippy peanut butter — mwah!

And whack! Mighty hunter. —Lloyd Kahn

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

I copied this essay’s idea of an at‑home writing retreat by creating a loose schedule of deep‑work, time‑blocked writing between breaks for reading, meditating, walking my dog, lunch, and body care. What would have been a regular, aimless Saturday of half‑finished chores and movies turned into a day that felt both relaxing and genuinely productive at the same time. It surprised me how intentionally breaking my normal rhythm, even inside my own house, could leave me feeling like I’d been somewhere new mentally and physically. — CD

Tiny retro keychain camera

The Kodak Charmera is a thumb-sized digital camera that clips onto your keychain and shoots gloriously lo-fi 1.6-megapixel photos and video. My daughter has been taking amazing shots with it — the grainy, slightly washed-out images have a nostalgic, early-2000s digicam vibe that mocks the clinical perfection of phone cameras. One catch: without a microSD card, it only stores two photos, so buy a cheap card to make it truly useful. Young people are embracing these tiny cameras, maybe out of childhood nostalgia. Check out the r/toycameras subreddit for inspiring photos from the Charmera and other little cameras. — MF

Surprising podcasts

Two of my favorite new podcasts are produced by co-authors of one of the most notable books of last year, Abundance. The book argues for dynamic governance and a liberalism that builds stuff. Each author now has their own podcast. The Ezra Klein Show is in your standard interview format, but with an unexpected range of subjects, all cast through Klein’s sharp mind and extensive background. The conversations are reliably good. Derek Thompson’s Plain English show is a scripted narrative that researches interesting questions. His episodes are more like an audible magazine with more than one interviewee. I rate my podcasts on how often they surprise me, and Plain English is usually surprising. — KK

Disposable baby bibs

A common parenting challenge when traveling or visiting with small children: a bib is too bulky to carry around, but meals without it are a mess. First world solution: disposable bibs. Light, cheap, does the job, toss when done. $7 for 20. — KK

Private visual universe

Cosmos is a visual search engine like Pinterest, except it’s ad‑free (right now), which makes it a quieter, calmer place to gather and collect thematic images. There are no likes or comments, so it feels less like social media and more like a private gallery for drafting up mood boards and visual worlds. — CD

A rollicking Viking saga

My father kept recommending Frans G. Bengtsson’s novel The Long Ships to me, but I kept putting it off. As soon as I started reading it, I was enthralled. This 1941 Swedish classic follows Red Orm, a Danish boy abducted by Vikings, through galley slavery, Moorish Spain, battles in England, and treasure hunts along Russian rivers. It’s funny, exciting, and endlessly inventive. If you liked Game of Thrones, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Jack Vance, you’ll probably love it too. Novelist Michael Chabon, who wrote the introduction, says he’s only ever met three other people who knew the book — and all of them, like him, “loved it immoderately.” — MF

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Get Prometheus Rising

I read Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising when I was in my early 20s, and it has stuck with me ever since (I’ve re-read it several times). It’s a manual for understanding how your mind got programmed and how to reprogram it, using Timothy Leary’s eight-circuit model of the mind, which maps consciousness across eight levels, from the most basic survival reflexes and territorial emotions up through symbolic reasoning, and then into higher circuits — neurosomatic bliss, collective unconscious, metaprogramming, and beyond. Wilson uses this framework as a ladder: each circuit has its own imprints, triggers, and exercises for waking it up.

Core Principles

1. Whatever the Thinker Thinks, the Prover Proves

Your mind has two parts: a Thinker that creates beliefs and a Prover that finds evidence to support them. If you think the world is hostile, your Prover will find endless proof. If you think people are kind, your Prover finds that too. This is why people with opposite beliefs both feel completely certain — their Provers are working perfectly. Understanding this mechanism is the first step to freedom.

2. You Live in a Reality Tunnel

Each of us inhabits a unique “tunnel-reality” constructed from our neurological wiring, cultural conditioning, and personal experiences. We don’t see the world as it is, because that’s impossible. We see our model of it. Communication fails because we assume others share our tunnel.

3. Society Is a Brainwashing Machine

Human society conditions us to walk with a perpetual mental crouch, using only a fraction of our potential. Most of our limitations aren’t inherent — they’re imprinted through culture, language, and social expectations. We’ve been programmed to believe our small selves are all there is. Unleashing our full mental stature is what brain-change work is all about.

4. The Nervous System Can Be Reprogrammed

Your brain isn’t fixed. Through deliberate exercises and practices, you can rewrite your mental software, escape old imprints, and access circuits of consciousness you didn’t know you had. Wilson provides exercises at the end of every chapter because reading about change isn’t enough — you have to practice it.

Try It Now

1. For one week, assume the world is conspiring to help you. Notice how your Prover finds evidence for this belief.
2. Identify a strong opinion you hold. Spend 15 minutes deliberately arguing the opposite position to yourself, as convincingly as possible.
3. Notice when you say “is” statements (”He is lazy,” “That is wrong”). Rephrase them: “He seems lazy to me” or “I perceive that as wrong.” Feel how this loosens your certainty.
4. Pick someone whose worldview differs radically from yours. Instead of dismissing them, try to understand the reality tunnel that makes their beliefs make sense to them.

Quote

“Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove.”

Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.

I have tried at least 20 small Bluetooth speakers over the years. The small size usually means major sacrifices. They’ll normally handle electronic dance music and synth pop just fine, but have trouble providing good fidelity for rap and rock. I finally found one I could crank up to 11 with the Fender X ROCKSTER Go 2 by Teufel. Yes Fender the guitar/amp company. It handled everything well, including one of the best riff rock albums ever: Electric by The Cult. The neighbors could hear it and the wife was shouting, “Turn that down!” It’s waterproof, shock-proof, and has a crazy long 28-hour battery life. It weighs a pound and a half (734 grams) and is 8.4 inches wide, so it’s best packed when checking a bag, but you’ll be party ready on the other side.

No Remote Work or Freebies in Bali

You can add something new to the very long list of reasons to avoid Bali. In one of the strangest government decrees we’ve seen yet, Bali is enforcing a policy that any kind of commercial activity done on their island requires a work visa. That means any kind of compensation coming from anywhere in the world, in any form, is prohibited. They’ve been cracking down on “influencers” because those people are the most visible, but they’ve said this will also apply to remote tech workers and people receiving freebies while on site. Does that mean you could be fined if you post a photo of your free cocktail from a hosted event? Or that trade show water bottle you got while attending a convention? Or if you step into a co-working space and open a laptop? The way it reads now, yes.

Thailand Halves the Visa on Arrival Time

Thailand’s government is almost as mercurial as Bali’s, changing their visa policies constantly to reflect their love-hate relationship with digital nomads. After a few bad apples opened physical businesses while on a tourist visa and the extra days didn’t move the needle on tourism arrivals, the government is turning back the calendar. At a date not determined yet, the tourist visa on demand will only be good for 30 days instead of 60. This could change or get pushed back, but for now plan accordingly. If it goes through, you’ll have to visit an immigration office to extend your stay to two months instead of one (and approval is not guaranteed).

The Airbnb Housing Distraction

Often when governments try to solve a problem, the easy solution they reach for is the most ineffective. I wrote before about the utter failure of New York City’s Airbnb ban, which only succeeded in enriching hotel companies, not helping local renters. This great article breaks down why that failed and why similar measures in Spain will too, while Tokyo and Austin have managed to decrease average rent prices by going after a lasting solution instead. The real solution is harder, but has far more impact: making it easier to build new housing.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

Russian-born, London-based. Three kids, a few companies, an adventure bike, two restless legs and a habit of chasing ideas, opportunities, and adventures across continents and B-roads.

LINKS:

• instagram.com/xternal
• linkedin.com/in/pavelguzhikov
• facebook.com/pavel.guzhikov
• guzhikov.substack.com

NEWSLETTER:

PHYSICAL

• Crocs Geometric Clog — I always thought Crocs are lame and uncomfortable, until my friend some day told me he is sexy enough to wear crocs all the time. Then I randomly bought this geometric one and fell in love. I go to gym, shop, sometimes office and basically anywhere where something more is not expected by circumstances. Really comfy and versatile.
• Black Diamond Astro — bought a couple of years ago in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for mountain hiking and camping, but had a new like at my home and daily life in London, UK. I use it in so many situations – to keep my hair up, to read books, to cook in the kitchen, to play with kids, to run. It is a thing which makes me see everything more clearly in all possible ways.
• Ion8 Primo 720ml water bottle — I am very British-local-manufacturing-patriotic which I try to write about in Substack by the way. I used Camelbak bottles a lot, but switching to ion8 made me feel the difference. Everything is perfect here up to the nozzle. It is beautiful, useful, comfortable and makes me drink more and more with more pleasure.

DIGITAL

• Endel — even in years when creating music is a click away I still love and feel Endel is doing a great job for me and my brain. It relaxes me, soothes, focuses, energises… and so on. It is like ML but without feedback loops. Don’t know, it just works amazing for me.
• Knowledge Project — if I have to consume only one source of information, this would be it. Shane does a great job for years asking great questions to interesting and not always obvious people. Signal in the world of noise. Ideas to think about. Thought provoking.

INVISIBLE

“Just keep livin’” — mentioned by Matthew McConaughey in his first book is an internal engine that was always in me to keep doing things often even without thinking why, what for or how. For me it is an idea for both “stand up and play again” and that even “empty” days are fine to be out there.

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Unflattening
by Nick Sousanis
Harvard University Press
2015, 208 pages, 7.5 x 10.2 x 1 inches

Buy on Amazon

It is remarkable how much we learn in our youth and how fast we learn it. It is a pace that really cannot sustain itself as we age, though we might try to continue to learn as though we were young. In my youth, the newspaper seemed a vast swarm of text and a few images that encircled a hidden prize: the funnies. Comics, in youth, are acceptable, but as we age we regard them more as juvenile diversions. Over time, the picture book gives way to the novel. The non-fiction works in the form of text books and scholarly journals are tools to educate us. Finally, should we pursue learning down the institutional path long enough, we encounter doctoral theses with their many and myriad intertextual references. It is a long-standing joke among academics that it is rare that the thesis they slave over for four or more years ever actually gets read.

Nick Sousanis, with his doctoral thesis Unflattening, is a poignant departure from any trend of dissertations written for the sake of being written. More than that, it is meant to be more than a read work. It is an experiential work that asks the reader to not just read, but rather to participate in learning to appreciate imagery on equal terms with orderly lines of written text. This is a dissertation written in comic book format that argues for the power of that medium. One might think about the adage concerning the worth of pictures and thousands of words, and that does come up in the work itself, but this is something more than a trite saying. It is a masterful reinterpretation of how we read and learn, and how our world can be captured and conveyed to our fellows. It dismantles the rigid presumptions we have regarding the inherent value of the written word – especially scholarly writing. It champions the comic, for “while the image is, the text is always about.” Indeed, it is brilliantly argued throughout that “the visual provides expression where words fail.”

The title, Unflattening, refers to Edwin A. Abbott’s novella Flatland (1884), about a dystopian flatland of two dimensional objects, where a coin would not be seen by others for its circular shape, but rather would be seen edge-on as just a line obscuring the horizon. This is a “linelander,” and all linelanders see each other this way. A square of three dimensions frees the coin-shaped object by peeling it from the flat surface so that it might see its brethren and world from above – from the third dimension, just as we would look down upon a page in a geometry textbook

Sousanis, similarly, wishes to peel us away from the linear predominance of the textual world where word follows word follows word. He comes from a background in comics, graphic novels, or whatever phrase you would use to describe his art. Just as his square peels away the coin from lineland to reveal it to be flatland, so too Sousanis convinces us, by both text and deed, of the power of comics. His text is often sparse and pared down to its most necessary elements, but the accompanying visuals draw the eye along and serve as an obvious example that reinforces the sometimes vague text. The deed is the image, for it is the more obvious representation of our lived world, while the text can only describe it. This may all seem obvious, but Sousanis brings to bear so many examples and graphical displays to reinforce his line of argument, that the journey through this work is quite remarkable. Moreover, his endnotes at the back serve not only to acknowledge his textual sources, but also to draw attention to and explain his visual inspirations. Those images that so often sit confined within frames within museum galleries or as a ghettoized section of glossy pages in the middle of an art book, they are given life and agency by Sousanis’ deploying of them as allies to his words.

Certainly, it is almost with chagrin that one must only write about such a work when it argues so convincingly that mere text is limited in its conveying of full meaning. It is some solace that the accompanying images from Sousanis’ work will allow readers of this review to gain greater insight in the majesty of his pairing of imagery and text. This is a thinking person’s book and it is most definitely academic, but it is also surprisingly accessible. It draws upon – and draws – so many disciplines and so many real-world instances, that anyone and everyone will find it illuminating. So profound are many of these moments of illumination that they go a long way to rejuvenating our desire to see the world anew, from a child’s eyes once more. – Stephen Webb.

FOR FANS INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY AND INSPIRATION BEHIND A BOY AND HIS TIGER

Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An Exhibition Catalogue
by Bill Watterson and Robb Jenny
Andrews McMeel Publishing
2016, 160 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 0.6 inches

Buy on Amazon

I like many grew up on Calvin and Hobbes. I don’t know if there’s a comic, book, film, or any other piece of art that better captures a childhood. I read every Sunday strip, most of the dailies, and the ones that I missed I would read in dog-eared collection books checked out from the library. As I got older, I wanted to know more about the strip’s creation. When I picked up the Complete Calvin and Hobbes, a 14-pound tomb, I was a little disappointed. Other than an introduction, there was very little information about the mysterious creator Bill Watterson. Thankfully, Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An Exhibition Catalogue makes up for that.

This is the Blu-Ray extras that Calvin & Hobbes fans have been waiting for. It’s not for those casually interested in reading the strip. There are plenty of other books for that. But if you’re interested in process, history, and the inspiration behind a boy and his tiger, you’re going to love this book.

The book explores an exhibit of Watterson’s work at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum. It also includes one of the most in-depth interviews he’s ever given. In it you get a rare look at his early work, the tools Watterson used, the struggles he went through, and the wonderful comic that he created. You get a real sense of the artistry that Watterson put into the strip, and how it evolved over the years. It’s great to relive and learn about something that had such an influence on me. This book is definitely a must-have for Calvin and Hobbes fans. – JP LeRoux

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Memorable estimates

Rules of Thumb

I’m a big fan of rules of thumb. Like: “Count the number of times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds, and add 37. That’s the temperature in Fahrenheit.” They are great estimating tools. At the Whole Earth Catalog we first published Tom Parker’s collection of these portable estimates, soliciting others from readers. I suggested a few rules of my own, which made their way into one of Parker’s later books. Since I remember — and use — a number of these rough recipes, I have always regretted that the books were out of print. If ever there was knowledge ideal for the web, rules of thumb are it. Tom Parker has recently digitized all the rules he has collected. He posts one old rule per day, and one new one suggested by readers. As the rules are tagged over time to make searching easier, we’ll finally have the world-wide database of guesstimates that short-cut-takers like myself have always wanted.

You can find inexpensive used copies of the books, Rules of Thumb, and Rules of Thumb 2, but the web site really is a much better way to use and discover these. Parker has refined his explanation of what rules of thumb are, and why they are cool tools. He writes:

“A rule of thumb is a homemade recipe for making a guess. It is an easy-to-remember guide that falls somewhere between a mathematical formula and a shot in the dark. Rules of thumb are a kind of tool. They help you appraise a problem or situation. They make it easier to consider the subtleties of the topic at hand; they give you a feel for a subject. A rule of thumb is not a joke or a ditty. It is not a Murphy’s Law. Murphy says that things will take longer than we think; a rule of thumb says how much longer. While a proverb says that a stitch in time saves nine, a rule of thumb says to allow one inch of yarn for every stitch on a knitting needle.”

I’ve spent a lot of time reading through these over the years. I now subscribe to the Rules of Thumb RSS feed from Parker’s site. My new rule of thumb: “One in 25 rules of thumb will be useful to you.” YMMV, but I find that a pretty good hit rate. — KK

• The best way to make money in residential real estate is to buy the worst home on the best street.
• The moon covers half a degree of sky.
• When digging a grave by hand, haul away 17 wheelbarrow loads of dirt and pile the rest by the hole. You will have just the right amount to backfill.
• For marketing purposes, elderly consumers think they are 15 years younger than they actually are.
• The price of a telescope increases proportionately to the cube of the lens diameter.
• Recovering an unused physical skill takes one month for each year of layoff.
• If you walk into a bar where a lot of people wear baseball caps, it’s a good place to sell lottery tickets.
• Eclipses often come in pairs. A lunar eclipse is followed frequently by a solar eclipse two weeks later, and vice versa.
• If the cats aren’t sleeping on the radiators, turn down the heat.
• One chemical toilet serves 15 employees per week.
• It takes two minutes for the sun to drop out of sight once it touches the horizon.
• If a woman can walk around during contractions, she is not fully dilated.
• When you are working in the vicinity of high voltage, keep 1 foot of distance between you and the power source for each 1,000 volts. For instance, stay 13 feet away from a 13,000 volt power source.
• You have a 50 percent chance of surviving overboard in 50 degree water for 50 minutes.
• Spring moves up in altitude 1000 feet per week
• Ten people will raise the temperature of a room one degree per hour
• If a speech takes 15 minutes in a dry run, it will take one third longer on the actual event.
• Rental property should sell for 100 times the monthly rental income.
• Double the height of a 3-yearold to determine his or her adult height.

How to memorize anything

Super Memory, Super Student

Harry Lorayne has been teaching ancient principles of memorization for 50 years. They really work. My dad taught me these when I was a kid and I still rely on them. At first the methods seem gimmicky, but they soon become habit. The techniques are well proven (some are thousands of years old) and will benefit anyone. However in this book Lorayne aims at students, providing them ways they can use easy tricks to tackle common school memory tasks. He has a system for turning numbers into words so you can remember numbers and dates as well. Imagine how much more efficient you’d be if your memory was just five percent better, and howmuch easier your life would be if everyone else’s improved. —KK

• Every high-school student I’ve spoken to knows about the acronym FOIL, which is a memory aid for remembering how to attack an algebraic equation: Firsts, Outers, Inners, Lasts. (More on this in the algebra section in chapter 20.) And I’ve never met a doctor or a medical student who didn’t remember the cranial nerves (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, auditory, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, hypoglossal) by reciting the couplet
  
  On Old Olympia’s Towering Top
  
  A Finn And German Vault And Hop.
  Professors have helped medical students learn the layers of the scalp by suggesting that the word “scalp” itself might remind them of skin, close connective tissue (cutaneous vessels and nerves), aponeurosis (epicranial), loose connective tissue, pericranium.
• I’ve said it so many times, it’s been copied so many times, I may as well say it again: The “three R’s” cliche – reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic – should be four R’s. The first R should be remembering. Because without that first R, you can’t read, write, or do ‘rithmetic! All education is based on remembering. I know of no high school or college subject that doesn’t require lots of memory work.
• In order for you to remember any new thing it must be associated, in someridiculous way, with something you already know or remember.
• Desecrate – “to profane a holy place; to treat a sacred thing irreverently”: You’rein a desert and see a gigantic crate — desert crate. It’s a sacred thing (perhaps a halo is over it), but you kick it and so forth — treat it with disrespect, irreverently. (Dat’s a crate would also do.)
  Atrophy – “to waste away from lack of use”: A trophy or I throw fee will remind you of the pronunciation. Connect one of them to the meaning of the word. Perhaps visualize a trophy (a gigantic loving cup or statue) wasting away shrinking) because no one ever uses it (see it covered with dust and spiderwebs).
  
  Relegate – “to send to a lower position”: You roll a gate downward, sending it to a lower position. Be sure you actually see that.

Ultimate recovery

How to Find Lost Object

In my household I am Mr. Find It. I rarely if ever lose things myself, and have become the go-to guy to find what others have lost. Over the years of finding things, I have evolved a set of principles very similar to those laid out in this very simple book. This method really works.

You can read this book for free online. That way you’ll never lose it.

But some people like the laminated-paper-pulp form to give as a gift. While there is more in the slim book, none of the extra is essential. Still, it’s a handy quick reference. — KK

Principle Ten

The Eureka Zone

The majority of lost objects are right where you figure-once you take a moment to stop and figure.

Others, however, are in the immediate vicinity of that place. They have undergone a displacement-a shift in location that, although minor, has served to render them invisible.

Some examples:
A pencil has rolled beneath a typewriter.
A tool has been shoved to the rear of a drawer.
A book on a shelf has gotten lodged behind other books.
A folder has been misfiled, several folders away from where it belongs.
Objects are apt to wander. I have found, though, that they tend to travel no more than eighteen inches from their original location. To the circle described by this eighteen-inch radius I have given a name. I call it the Eureka Zone. With the aid of a ruler, determine the Eureka Zone of your lost object. Then explore it. Meticulously.

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

Most sources of AI-generated content do not warrant a second visit. The only AI-generated content I have been returning to are two YouTube channels that use AI to reconstruct history. The first one, Majestic Studios, recreates daily life in now legendary ancient cities as seen through time. I learned a lot, for instance, by following the development of Paris from 259 BC till the present. This same creator (a British bloke, Jonathan Laramime) created a synthetic character named Chloe, styled as an influencer in LA, who pretends to be a time-travelling tourist. Chloe is very believable. She wanders the streets in ancient times taking selfies and being wowed by the cultural norms. Chloe’s valley girl reactions to the ancient world is accessible and entertaining, but also historically accurate, which has made the channel Chloe VS History a viral hit. Recreating history is the perfect job for AI, and I expect these channels to be the first of many, as other history buffs create their own improved versions. — KK

Beautifully designed two-player card game

I bought the Desperate Oasis card game solely because the retro design is gorgeous — vintage orange-and-cream illustrations of camels, scorpions, jackals, and chameleons that look like they were pulled from a 1920s matchbook art. The fact that it’s actually fun to play is a bonus. Two players battle for control of five desert oases by playing animal cards on either side, using palm trees to boost values, and triggering special powers (the Deathstalker Scorpion destroys the weakest card; three Jackals create a bonus space). A round takes about 15 minutes, and a full game is three rounds. — MF

Theatrical releases you can stream

Every weekend I set out to figure out what’s in theaters that I can also watch from home. But between all the streaming services and web directories, I end up spending more time searching than watching. JustWatch.com used to solve this for me, but lately it feels complicated and sometimes inaccurate. It’s a made-up problem that doesn’t really matter but is genuinely annoying. My current fix is this IMDB list of theatrical releases you can stream or rent, and it seems to actually stay updated. — CD

Cheap living in China

Chinamaxxing is fashionable right now. One guy moved his family from America to China and gives an account of how much it costs to live in the middle class in China. His video report, “I Left the US for Shenzhen, China – Here’s How Much it Costs” ignores all the political aspects of living in China and merely focuses on the economic. Right now very few westerners will want to make the political tradeoffs to move to China, but this report will reveal a bit about how middle class Chinese are actually living, and gives a more realistic portrait of China today. — KK

Oddly satisfying tree stump removal videos

Uproot Excavator is a YouTube channel devoted entirely to one thing: tree stumps being yanked out of the ground by heavy equipment. The arm of an excavator, fitted with a pincer-like attachment, clamps onto a stump, rips it out along with a massive clump of roots that must weigh several hundred pounds, shakes the dirt loose, and sets the whole thing aside next to a fresh crater in the earth. That’s it. Hundreds of short videos, all basically the same removal over and over. I find it weirdly hypnotic and deeply satisfying to watch. — MF

Ten-minute skills for the rest of your life

This Reddit thread asks what a person can learn in 10 minutes that will be useful for life, and the top-voted answer is using your hand span, thumb to pinky, as a built-in measuring tool. Mine is 7 inches, which I will now never forget. The other favorites in the thread are worth sharing for your relationships and your nervous system: “Never explain yourself to people committed to misunderstanding you.” Before responding in an argument, scan your body and take a slow nasal breath to notice fight or flight before you speak. Then speak calmly. “‘No, I can’t’ is a full sentence. You don’t owe anyone a 10-minute TED Talk about why.” — CD

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