Cheap fast wireless for travel to Japan
I spent almost five weeks in Japan this summer. My T-Mobile plan includes international data but it is pretty slow so I rented a Pocket WiFi from eConnect. I ordered it in advance and picked it up at the post office at Narita Airport. I bought the 50GB plan for about $125. When I came close to running out (our traveling party of five used it pretty much non-stop on their phones and laptops) I bought more data for about $1 per GB. It was very fast and worked everywhere we went, including the remote mountain town of Koya-san. At the airport on the way home I put it in the return mailer and dropped it off at the post office. — MF

Affordable teleprompter
When I make videos where I need to talk to the camera (the audience) I can’t remember what I need to say, so I use this affordable teleprompter. Teleprompters project my visible text on an angled glass that the camera is shooting through. Normally this is a very expensive very cumbersome rig, but the Parrot Teleprompter uses a cheap plastic case, glass mirror, and a selection of lens rings to fit on to many digital cameras. It cleverly uses your smart phone as the screen. For about $100 I got a perfectly useful compact teleprompter mounted on my tripod that worked exactly as I needed. I can deliver my lines easily while directly gazing at the viewers and it looks very natural. — KK

Do nothing for 2 minutes
Expand this webpage to full-screen, turn up the sound and listen to ocean waves for two minutes. If you click on your mouse or press the keyboard the timer starts over. Just enjoy the break. — CD

Home blood type test
My 15-year-old daughter learned about blood types in school and was curious to learn her blood type. I ordered two of these kits (each $7 kit has two tests) so our whole family could find our what our blood types are. The included auto-lance makes it easy to draw blood (it hurts just a little, not much) and it was interesting to see how our blood types clotted differently. — MF

Safe alternative to candles
These Luminara battery-operated taper candles really do look real. I love having them on every night on the dining room table and watching the flame flicker. It makes the room look so elegant. There’s even a timer setting to turn off automatically after 5 hours. — CD

Five quotes

The simplification of anything is always sensational. — G.K. Chesterton

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. — Bertrand Russell

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. — C.S. Lewis

Are we being good ancestors? — Jonas Salk
When I grow up I want to be a little boy. — Joseph Heller

Five quotes above that tickle me. — KK

-- Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson 08/26/18