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Mindfully curated Recomendos
My personal recommendations always lean more toward mindfulness and productivity hacks, and a lot of what I’ve shared with you are daily habits which have significantly improved my quality of life. So I went back in time to pull my own essential recomendos and I put them in a paperback book called Reco•mind•o: Mindful Recomendos for Life and Work ($14, 120 pages). It has less products to buy and more tips on how to be a better human. It is now available on Amazon and should arrive before Christmas. — CD

Cheap dent repair
Repairing even a small dent in a car to its immaculate like-new condition is very expensive. But a new technique called PDR, can bring it back to a good-enough state. This Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) uses hot glue to attached grips to the outside in order to pull out the dent to its former shape, and then buffs out any scrapes, without taking panels off or repainting. This hand craft requires decent skill but only minimal tools so lots of small-time mobile practitioners outside of a body shop use it. Of course you can also buy a beginner’s PDR Kit for $35 and try it yourself with help from YouTube. Otherwise, if you have a dent or ding without paint damage, google “PDR near to me” for local service. — KK

Interactive Game Theory tutorial
You’ve probably heard of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, a scenario in two prisoners independently decide whether to cooperate or betray each other in order to minimize their own punishment. The best strategy for a single game is to betray the other player. But what happens if you have to repeat the scenario over and over again with the same prisoner? The betrayal strategy will fall short of other strategies, such as tit-for-tat. This website, called The Evolution of Trust, is an exciting way to learn about game theory, trust, and human behavior. — MF

Holiday wishlist for the creative-minded
Our Cool Tools Lab colleague Camille Hartsell put together a holiday wishlist of unique writing instruments and other crafty things. I really want this “fine line” painting pen and this hardcover journal with super thick paper. — CD

Minimal Teflon
Something new worth worrying about: PFAS. Basically non-stick coatings like Teflon, but on many containers, and not just in food, but also in drinking water, etc. In this video Adam Ragusea does a hard look at the early science on these very hardy and persistant molecules. We’re converging on something similar to Adam: one Teflon pan, used sparingly. — KK

Natural language music playlist
Use this website to describe the kind of music you want and it will generate a Spotify playlist for you. I entered “1966 psychedelic garage rock for AM radio” and loved the 100 songs it found for me. I also entered “melancholy yet strangely optimist music for the last person alive on a dying earth” and got another 100 amazing songs, most of which were new to me. This is a great way to discover music you might otherwise miss. — MF

— Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson

12/18/22