{"id":45043,"date":"2025-11-02T22:19:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=45043"},"modified":"2025-11-02T22:19:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:19:56","slug":"ambient-music-streams-thinking-skills-guide-kindle-hand-strap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/ambient-music-streams-thinking-skills-guide-kindle-hand-strap\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambient music streams\/Thinking skills guide\/Kindle hand strap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thinking skills guide<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A sensible little book is The Great Mental Models (Vol.1)<\/a> by Shane Parrish. It presents nine different \u201cGeneral Thinking Concepts,\u201d or what I might call, best practices for critical thinking. You may already use some of these when approaching unknowns, but others may be unfamiliar. The tone and strength of this book are ideal for young people and students, starting out on their journey of lifelong learning. It is a great little chest of handy tools for grappling with complexity. These are all post-AI skills. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catalog of Dark Patterns<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Dark Patterns Hall of Shame<\/a> was created by a team of researchers and designers to raise awareness about manipulative design techniques used by companies and websites. There are lots of visual examples of dark patterns \u2014 including hard-to-cancel subscriptions, hidden costs, nagging, and tricky wording. I wasn\u2019t at all surprised to see Amazon Audible<\/a> as a repeat offender. Although it\u2019s called a \u201chall of shame,\u201d the aim isn\u2019t just to call out bad companies. The website serves as a cautionary guide, offering suggestions for better approaches, examples of what to avoid, and explanations of what isn\u2019t a dark pattern<\/a> (and why). \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kindle hand strap<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2018ve been using my left pinkie to support my Kindle for so many years that it feels permanently damaged. Recently, I noticed my sister had an elastic hand strap on her Kindle. It lets you slip your hand between the strap and the Kindle, so you don\u2019t have to grip the Kindle. I bought one made by Kowjaw<\/a>, but there are many different designs available. Too bad I didn\u2019t learn about this sooner; I wouldn\u2019t have ende up with a sore pinkie. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explore the World of Wine with Andr\u00e9 Mack<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not a big YouTube watcher, but if I were going to subscribe and consistently follow anyone\u2019s channel, it would be Bon App\u00e9tit\u2019s sommelier Andr\u00e9 Mack<\/a>. He is incredibly likable and nothing like what I imagine when I think of a traditional wine expert. He\u2019s naturally charming and generous in the way he shares his knowledge about wine and spirits, along with practical advice on how to buy, pair, and taste wine. I have an upcoming trip to Kentucky\u2019s Bourbon Trail, and I\u2019ve learned so much from him about what makes bourbon truly \u201cbourbon.\u201d<\/a> I highly recommend checking out his entire playlist on YouTube. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perplexity browser<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Comet Browser combines Perplexity\u2019s AI engine with daily browsing tasks. After a month, it keeps surprising me: it can navigate websites, compare deals, summarize articles and videos, automate online purchases, draft and organize emails, manage my calendar, and intelligently group tabs using language requests. I migrated my Chrome bookmarks and extensions with no hassles. Here\u2019s a demo video<\/a>, plus a free trial of the Pro version for a month<\/a>. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ambient music streams<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago Brian Eno invented ambient music. The music was intended to stay in the background while being present, like furniture. For best results ambient was meant to be always on, but that was easier said than done. Constantly changing disks or setting up multiple playlists is a chore. What we\u2019ve been doing at home is tuning a music streaming service to play \u201cEno and Eno-like music<\/a>\u201d round the clock. The channel is always on, low volume, and it rarely repeats, so what we get is the endless ambient music Eno originally had in mind. Try it. \u2013 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get Recomendo a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recomendo – issue #486<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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\/45043"}],"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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45044,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45043\/revisions\/45044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}