{"id":45332,"date":"2025-12-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=45332"},"modified":"2025-12-29T11:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T18:50:33","slug":"soulmates-exhalation-instant-dice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/soulmates-exhalation-instant-dice\/","title":{"rendered":"Soulmates \/ Exhalation \/ Instant dice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3><strong>52 Surprising Things<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Every December, writer Tom Whitwell publishes an eclectic list of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@tomwhitwell\/52-things-i-learned-in-2025-edeca7e3fdd8\">52 surprising things Whitwell learned over the year<\/a>. It\u2019s one of my favorite year-end reads. A few samples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Marchetti\u2019s Constant is the idea that throughout human history, from cave dwellers to ancient Greeks to 21st century Londoners, people tend to commute for about an hour a day \u2014 30 minutes out, 30 minutes home. So faster travel leads to longer distances, not less time. [<a href=\"https:\/\/pure.iiasa.ac.at\/id\/eprint\/4071\/1\/RR-95-04.pdf\">Cesare Marchetti, plus a 2025 update<\/a>]<\/li><li>The Casio F91W \u2014 the ubiquitous digital watch, worn by Osama Bin Laden, costing just \u00a312 \u2014 has been faked for years, and the fakes are getting better and better. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.burningimage.net\/genuine-and-fake-casio-f91w\/\">Andy C<\/a>]<\/li><li>Childhood peanut allergies are falling dramatically, perhaps because advice to avoid peanuts was reversed. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/10\/20\/well\/peanut-allergy-drop.html\">Simar Bajaj<\/a>]<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Browse his previous&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@tomwhitwell?source=post_page---byline--edeca7e3fdd8---------------------------------------\">lists here<\/a>. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Watchable American history<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe every American should be required to watch Ken Burn\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Civil War<\/em>&nbsp;series to understand their country today. Ken Burns has done it again with his new series on&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/video\/the-american-revolution-episode-1-in-order-to-be-free\/\">The American Revolution<\/a><\/em>. Six episodes, 12 hours. LIke his other series, it unsettles the story-book history we have in our heads, and celebrates the complexity of the actual ideas, events, and complicated characters at the time. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>See yourself as a verb<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/psyche.co\/ideas\/the-existential-balm-of-seeing-yourself-as-a-verb-not-a-noun\">The existential balm of seeing yourself as a verb, not a noun<\/a>\u201d is a perspective\u2011shifting essay that explores a gentler way to hold the fear of death by reframing the self not as something fixed, but as a natural unfolding process. The author suggests reframing personhood as a shifting weave of body, breath, memory, mood, and perceptions, always in motion and in relationship with the world. The idea is to loosen perfectionistic pressure around having to be a fixed, definitive \u201csomeone,\u201d and instead approach death as a quieting down of processes rather than the annihilation of a solid self. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Sharpen dull Airbnb knives<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve stayed in Airbnbs in many different countries, and have learned one universal truth: the kitchen knives are invariably dull. As a service to myself and future guests, I\u2019ve started bringing a small knife sharpener with me when I travel. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/JAeup\">Smith\u2019s 2-Step Knife Sharpener<\/a>&nbsp;is inexpensive, small, and lightweight, so I don\u2019t mind packing it. It takes less than a minute to restore the edge on a blade. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Freak Pages<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/freakpages.org\/\">Freak Pages<\/a>&nbsp;is a directory for the weirdest Wikipedia entries, community\u2011curated to help you discover strange topics you\u2019ve probably never heard of. Lots of rabbit holes to dive into. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Quotable quotes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some quotes I gathered recently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>It takes a lot of work to make something simple. \u2014 Steve Wozniak<\/li><li>One of the most realistic parts of&nbsp;<em>Lord of the Rings<\/em>&nbsp;is that almost no one wanted to get involved, until it was very nearly too late. \u2014 Ricki Tarr<\/li><li>Everyone searches for opportunities while running from problems, missing that they\u2019re the same thing. Problems aren\u2019t obstacles to opportunity, they ARE the opportunity. \u2014 Shane Parrish<\/li><li>Without data, you\u2019re just another person with an opinion. \u2014 W. Edwards Deming<\/li><li>When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them \u201cNo I went to films.\u201d \u2014 Quentin Tarantino<\/li><li>Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. \u2014 Jeff Bezos<\/li><li>The three lenses of opportunity cost: (1) Compared with what? (2) And then what? (3) At the expense of what? \u2014 Shane Parish<\/li><li>You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. \u2014 Cormac McCarthy<\/li><li>Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac! \u2014 George Carlin<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I find witty quotes sharpen my thinking and help me pay attention. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/recomendo.com\/\">Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get Recomendo a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recomendo &#8211; issue #494<\/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\/45332"}],"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=45332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45333,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45332\/revisions\/45333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}