{"id":46370,"date":"2026-06-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=46370"},"modified":"2026-06-26T07:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T14:13:43","slug":"works-in-progress-100-greatest-bird-names-cat-water-fountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/works-in-progress-100-greatest-bird-names-cat-water-fountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Works in Progress \/ 100 greatest bird names \/ Cat water fountain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you find any value in our little hand-written, hand-crafted, mostly free newsletter, the best thing you can do for us in return is to refer Recomendo to your friends. Because our casual suggestion might not be sufficient, we have added a tangible incentive:&nbsp;<strong>subscriber referral rewards.<\/strong>&nbsp;When you share Recomendo with friends who sign up using your unique link (at the bottom of every email), we will reward them with our free newsletter and reward you with some special thank\u2011yous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>At&nbsp;<strong>4 referrals<\/strong>, you\u2019ll receive an exclusive post,&nbsp;<em>Things That Should Be Better Known<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014 a curated PDF guide to our own most dependable, most used, favorite products that should be better known.<\/li><li>At&nbsp;<strong>7 referrals<\/strong>, you\u2019ll get an invitation to join one of our live quarterly AMA office\u2011hours calls, where you can ask us anything.<\/li><li>At&nbsp;<strong>10 referrals<\/strong>, we\u2019ll send you a personalized doodle from us as a small, distinctive unique hand\u2011made thank you.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Your personal referral link lives at the bottom of each Recomendo newsletter email. Forward the issue to anyone you think would enjoy useful recommendations every week, and suggest they sign up. If they do, we will keep track and thank you with a flourish of small favors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Underrated new ideas<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I edited&nbsp;<em>Wired<\/em>&nbsp;magazine, I edited the&nbsp;<em>Whole Earth Review<\/em>&nbsp;(formerly&nbsp;<em>CoEvolution Quarterly<\/em>). It was a magazine for conceptual news. We published new ideas. Since its demise, blogs and Substack in general have taken up that role. But starting a few years ago, a new magazine has appeared that is the closest replacement to&nbsp;<em>Whole Earth<\/em>. Called<em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/f4e54199-e9bd-4c40-b554-11b2fbb4a296?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Works in Progress<\/a><\/em>, published by the payments company Stripe, its mission is to disseminate \u201cnew and underrated ideas to improve the world.\u201d Broadly the articles cover technology, science, building stuff, policy, and cultural innovations, but always with a slant on making progress, moving forward, a sense of optimism about what is possible. They publish new ideas. A couple of examples from recent issues: vaccinating wild animals, creating a rat-free city, using micro-bubbles to deliver drugs.&nbsp;<em>Works in Progress<\/em>&nbsp;is the only magazine I get delivered on paper; I enjoy reading its designed pages, and getting the extra bits you don\u2019t get online. All the main articles are online for free, and also available as a Substack subscription. Their treasure trove of back issues has more new ideas per minute than anywhere else I know. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>100 greatest bird names of all time<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Bless the bird lovers who take the time to make lists like this. Robert Francis ranked the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/ebca635e-0672-4ba3-af4d-bfbedba89784?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">100 greatest bird names of all time<\/a>, and my affinity for the bird kingdom keeps deepening the more I meet. They\u2019re all so cute, and I wish I could hold them rather than scroll through them. It\u2019s hard to pick a favorite, but based on names and cuteness combined, #96 Handsome Fruiteater beats out the rest. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Stainless steel cat water fountain<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>My next-door neighbor has one of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/1e9fec1b-3f4e-4de3-bf7e-6f06dfc26e1d?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">water fountains for pets<\/a>&nbsp;says his cats love it. Cats seem to be naturally drawn to the sound and look of running water, and they\u2019ll often drink from a fountain when they\u2019d ignore a regular bowl. This one is made of stainless steel, so there are no seams or plastic crevices for bacteria to hide in, and it\u2019s dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. It holds 74oz, enough to keep multiple cats watered for days, and a window on the side lets you check the level without lifting the lid. The 5V pump runs quietly, and it comes with three activated-carbon filters. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Webpage folk art<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This is fun, and worth a few minutes glance: Creativity in the form of archived web pages from the dawn of the internet. When the web was first sprung upon the world in the 1990s, anybody could make a website themselves, but no pages had yet been made so there was no agreement on what a website should look like, then suddenly a million people created millions of websites without designers, but stuffed with colors, fonts, icons, animations, pictures, infinite scrolls, no limits. The exuberance is boundless. Someone selected the best from this wild big bang and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/4f4ca6d6-145e-41e1-b529-489b06905f43?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">merged it into one page<\/a>. It\u2019s our era\u2019s folk art. \u2014 KK<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Museum quality display stands<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I am a crystal collector, although for legitimacy purposes I\u2019d rather call them mineral specimens, and they deserve to be on display, not in a drawer or crowded on a shelf.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/3c5ff939-09be-4578-b0a3-91cb8d89e89c?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Art Display Essentials<\/a>&nbsp;is a great source for museum quality stands, with pricing comparable to other online storefronts. Highly recommend if you\u2019re an amateur collector who wants to level up their setup. \u2014 CD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3><strong>Electronics for kids<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/5407e97a-711a-40a9-8536-40af2526e9d0?j=eyJ1IjoiMXhmZzB6In0.4ieSFe4rvvESx3-YSOApdZUV-VKuM1Arc6QBuHWifaY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Electronics for Kids<\/a>, a new book by \u00d8yvind Nydal Dahl&#8217;s, starts with the basics \u2014 making a battery from a lemon, turning a bolt into an electromagnet \u2014 then moves into soldering real circuits, and finally into digital electronics, introducing logic gates and memory circuits before culminating in an LED reaction game that tests how fast you can catch a blinking light. The illustrations are clear throughout. Despite the title, I&#8217;d recommend it for adults as well as kids. \u2014 MF<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\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 #520<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47588,"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\/46370"}],"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\/47588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46371,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46370\/revisions\/46371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}