{"id":43543,"date":"2025-01-26T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=43543"},"modified":"2025-01-23T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T22:02:07","slug":"lego-portraits-brain-rot-tips-glicol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/lego-portraits-brain-rot-tips-glicol\/","title":{"rendered":"Lego portraits\/Brain rot tips\/Glicol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get Recomendo a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lego portraits<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A cool way to make some unusual art is to render an image in Lego. I used a kit from BrickMe<\/a> that turned a photo of my wife into 5,625 pixels, and then they supplied me with Lego tiles in 50 different colors. Using the map they also supply, I \u201cpainted\u201d the image by applying the tiles in the manner of paint-by-numbers. I glued the final assembly onto plywood to hang in my studio. The procedure is well-designed, fun, with plenty of extra tiles. Mine was the small size at 24 x 24 inches (57 x 57 cm) for $126; they can go much bigger. \u2013 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best tips to avoid brain rot<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to create more distance between myself and my phone. This list<\/a> offers some effective tricks to make your phone less interesting, as well as tips to avoid “brain rot.” According to the Oxford Dictionary, brain rot refers to the “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” For me, simply disabling badge and sound notifications was enough to make my phone less engaging. I also encouraged my closest friends and family to call me more often and text less. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Browser-based music tool<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Glicol<\/a> is a free music programming environment that runs in your web browser \u2014 no installation needed. As someone who dabbles in music coding, I like how it lets you connect audio nodes (like oscillators and filters) using simple >> arrows, similar to patching modular synths. It’s instantly usable for beginners. Watch a demo video<\/a>. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adjustable all-metal tablet stand<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My father liked this aluminum tablet stand<\/a> ($20) that I gave him for his birthday so much, he bought one for my mother. Unlike fixed-angle stands, this one lets you easily dial in the perfect viewing angle. Rubber-padded grips prevent slipping and scratches. Works with everything from phones to large tablets (4-17 inches) and folds nearly flat for travel. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really Comfortable Floor Mattress<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My home office doubles as a guest room, so I needed to find a comfortable floor mattress that could be easily packed away when not in use. I did a lot of research and went with the highly reviewed Milliard Tri-Folding Memory Foam Mattress<\/a> (6-inch, Twin XL). Every overnight guest we\u2019ve had says it\u2019s really comfortable. I\u2019ve also slept on it and liked it so much that I bought the smaller Twin size (6-inch) just to have an extra one on hand for camping trips or overnight retreats. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protecting your house from wildfire<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is a growing understanding of why some houses burn in a wildfire and why some escape. There are many things you can do to prevent your house from burning. First, the chief factor is how close your home is to another burning house. It is houses that set fire to houses, more than trees or vegetation. Prevention is a community thing. Second, a stream of embers ignites most houses, rather than flames. Those embers pile up in gutter debris, dry leaves near the foundation, firewood stack against a wall, or embers flying into vents, and that kindling ignites the house. These insights are based on the latest research into wild fire. A great starting point for learning what you can do \u2013 based on evidence \u2013 is the California Chaparral Institute<\/a>. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others. Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website<\/a>, a YouTube channel<\/a> and podcast<\/a>, and other newsletters, including Gar\u2019s Tips & Tools<\/a>, Nomadico<\/a>, What\u2019s in my NOW?<\/a>, Tools for Possibilities<\/a>, Books That Belong On Paper<\/a> and Book Freak<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recomendo – issue #446<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2323],"tags":[2324],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43544,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43543\/revisions\/43544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}