Author AJ Jacobs talks about his favorite tools
Cool Tools Podcast: Robert Stephens, Founder of Geek Squad
Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started eight years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 9 years.
Asknature.org is a free online tool where you can search thousands of nature's solutions to various challenges. Like how a decentralized society helps ants to recover from a food shortage or how maple tree seeds twirl in a tornado-like vortex to increase the reach of where their seeds are planted. Just ten minutes a day exploring this website will get you thinking differently. — CD
A few years ago I took an unforgettable night time tour in a Costa Rican jungle to listen to frog calls, and discovered that humans aren’t the only musicians on Earth. This playlist titled Amphibian Love Songs and Soundscapes took me back to that magical evening. — MF
Stargazing apps on your phone are magic. They work like AR-augmented reality — overlaying the night sky with outlines of constellations, star and planet names, paths of the moon, and even satellite, comet and asteroid sightings. The apps are uncannily accurate, and easy to understand. There are free apps and expensive subscriptions, but I use Star Walk 2 which cost $3. It’s the best $3 space investment I’ve ever made. — KK
This live feed of a watering hole in the Namib Desert streams live 24/7. I drop in a couple times a week and I've seen so many different animals sharing the waterhole. I've seen zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, ostriches and lot of different birds. The camera has a microphone and night vision, so you're always connected to this magical and awesome wildlife. — CD
For a dose of awe and wonder head over to Explore. org and choose from almost 100 live nature cams available at any time. There’s ocean cams, bears, gorillas, puppies and kittens and other animal sanctuaries (this sheep barn can be pretty mesmerizing to watch when they’re in for the night). — CD
There is utility and pleasure in being able to identify wild creatures and plants. But it’s a steep learning curve. The fastest way I found to learn is via the iOS app Seek, which will identify flowers, plants, fungi, animals, bugs instantly. It’s kind of magical. You point your phone at the specimen and it tells you the species about 95% of the time (in North America). The other 5% it can often identify the family. Someone called it Shazam for nature. The app is patient; you can keep asking it to ID the same thing you asked about before and it will will answer again with no judgement. Seek is free; it was developed by folks who did iNaturalist, an app that uses crowdsourcing to identify species, but Seek uses machine learning to render the ID instantly. I’ve been impressed by how well this magic works. Kids and teachers love it. It gives them a superpower to name everything around them. — KK
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