AI-musicals are becoming memes – and the new way to debate ideas. Not a normal debate highlights the debate about whether AI is a “normal technology” which has been spun into overdrive with AI-generated musicals defending each side. One musical refutes two academics scholarly paper arguing that AI is a normal technology, and the other AI musical by the two scholars refutes the first musical. Both musicals are astoundingly good, and even better if you follow the references. — KK

Kids Trends is a directory of more than 100 million children’s drawings and paintings that you can search by any keyword. Exploring how children picture the world opens up imaginal portals in my mind. — CD

Gossip Goblin is an Instagram channel of short AI-generated films set in a world that looks like a combination of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Mad Max. It explores themes of artificial intelligence, biohacking, and the merging of humans and machines. The artwork is incredible, as are the acting, stories, and characters. It’s the first time I’ve watched an AI video without thinking “this is AI slop. The Hollywood Reporter interviewed the creator, Zack London. His feature-length film, Gods Don’t Give Gifts, opens in US theaters October 30. — MF

I recently attended an in-person event with visionary Alana Fairchild, where she led us through a guided imagery meditation to meet Great Mother archetypes like the Black Madonna and Kuan Yin. I was especially moved by her chanting and singing. I own many of her oracle decks, but this recommendation is for her voice. You can experience her meditations and sacred music for free on Spotify. — CD

Recreate the entire ritual of online shopping on Dopamine Shop, or on Food Never Comes: You search for products, compare reviews, add items to your cart, enter a shipping address, place an order, and even track your delivery. That was fun! Then … nothing happens. No package arrives. No money changes hands. The food never comes. Nothing to return or clean up. You consumed nothing, yet you are an ace shopper. If shopping is your comfort scroll, this is very satisfying late at night. (This trend is big in Korea.) — KK

I needed a new bedside clock, so I got this Hotmoon Cocoon Pro 3 sound machine. Besides the dimmable clock display, it has 117 sounds, including 3 kinds of brown noise, my favorite. If you don’t like brown noise, try white, pink, green, blue, red, or gray. Once you set it up with the phone app, you don’t need the app unless you want to stream some of its regularly updated sounds. No subscription is required. It also has a night-light ring with adjustable color and brightness, works as a Bluetooth speaker, and has clearly labeled buttons on top. — MF

There are many reasons to live somewhere else, or to have the option to live somewhere else. The Nomad Capitalist is a YouTube channel that takes a market approach to the question of where you can live. It researches, compares, evaluates how much it costs to purchase a passport, or a residency card, or buy real estate around the world, and gives advice on what are the best bargains for “citizenship through investment” and so on. What is the cheapest price for a passport and what do you get? Where are taxes minimal? Many of the options he examines are not cheap, but for some, it can still be worth it. It’s good to know what your options are. — KK

It feels a little meta to share a newsletter’s list of other newsletters worth your time, but I’ve recommended Wonder Tools before and trust Jeremy Caplan’s curation. His list includes 17 newsletters covering useful tools, technology, AI, news, journalism, and practical wisdom. I’ve already added a few to my Feedly. Worth checking out if your inbox could use some new sources. — CD

I often take an AeroPress coffee maker when traveling, especially if I’m staying at a hotel or Airbnb. When I arrive, the first thing I do is buy ground coffee at a local market. I’ve streamlined my setup by using this stainless steel filter instead of bringing a sack of paper filters. It does a great job filtering the coffee, and I think it tastes better than coffee pressed through paper. It’s easy to clean with a rinse under the faucet, and Altura says it will replace the filter if you lose it, break it, or even have it stolen, no questions asked. — MF

This short guide by Tricycle Day gathers practical advice from licensed psilocybin facilitators on working with the inner child, critic, protector, people-pleaser, and all the other parts that can pull us in conflicting and confusing directions. I think this advice is useful with or without psychedelics. I found it helpful to learn that our inner inhabitants don’t always speak in words: “Our parts can show up through emotions, memories, body sensations, images, or inner dialogue, offering information about what they need and what they’ve been carrying.” — CD

Eighteen years ago Gary Wolf and I started the Quantified Self movement – the idea that you could use technology to track yourself. Gary hosted thousands of meetups where people shared what they were tracking and what they learned, and from this vast experience over decades, he finally wrote up the results of what we know about self-tracking in a new book, The Quantified Self. The book is fabulous, perceptive, useful, and illuminating. Turns out self-tracking is more about observing and having the right questions, than it is about wearable technology. Self-tracking can be a form of what Gary calls “personal science” – you are doing experiments on yourself (N=1), and the methods, criteria, protocols are different than what you would do for N=millions. I highly recommend The Quantified Self for everyone; we are all doing personal science on ourselves, and this will help you do it better. — KK

Most weather apps don’t show you yesterday’s weather. Who cares, right? But it’s useful information if you want to know whether today will be warmer or colder than yesterday. Yesterday is a free iPhone app that shows a chart of the hour-by-hour temperatures for yesterday and today. If it’s late in the day, you can see how tomorrow’s weather will differ from today’s. It also gives you a simple one-sentence summary, like “Today will be noticeably hotter and sunnier” or “Daytime high noticeably warmer and rain unlikely.” It was created by Matt Webb, who publishes Interconnected, one of my favorite newsletters. It’s a great example of vibe coding. — MF

Besides Recomendo, Cool Tools publishes a newsletter about books called Book Freak. I've been doing it for quite a few years, and I recently started finding old out-of-print books, scanning them, and turning them into ebooks with a new foreword and cover. This is a benefit for paid subscribers, and so far the library includes four books, with a new one coming every month. The latest is The White Rose by B. Traven, who also wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It was translated into English in 1979 but is out of print, so I used AI to translate the German version. It's very readable and a fantastic book. You can read about it here. —MF

I am traveling in China again and I am reminded that the best way for foreigners to book hotels, trains, and flights anywhere within China is to use Trip.com. It is easy to use, comprehensive, accurate, and reliable. — KK

Normal Tools is a free collection of 193 single-purpose tools for all kinds of random small tasks, including calculators, color pickers, image resizing, and file conversion. It has more tools than I will ever need, but useful to bookmark. Most tools are private by default and process everything locally in your browser, with no account or download required. — CD

For mathematical nerds, Henry Segerman is your channel. Segerman 3D-prints weird mathematical shapes, invents curious mathematical toys, constructs intricate mathematical models, and turns math into analog things you can 3D-print yourself. His YouTube channel demos all this with expert explanations of the math behind it. — KK

If I'm doing vigorous exercise, my earbuds fall out. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a second pair, so I bought these inexpensive Joywise Bluetooth headphones. They are wireless, have loops that fit around the ear, and are connected to each other with a wire. Unlike most small earbuds, they charge via USB-C directly rather than in a case. The sound quality is great for the sub-$20 price, and the batteries last up to 16 hours before needing a recharge. — MF

Scientists have reconstructed what a Jurassic forest might have sounded like 165 million years ago, and the one-minute audio is a really cool soundscape to imaginatively step into. They created it by analyzing and modeling the sound-producing structures preserved in 20 fossil insect wings from nine species that lived together in what is now Inner Mongolia. It’s a diverse chorus of low trills and high-pitched chirps, and I wish I could loop it all day as background noise. — CD

I’ve been keeping a sketchbook journal, where I visually record each day’s events, moods, or environment – as a way of making a diary. For inspiration on Instagram I follow a bunch of artists who are also prolific sketchbook creators. A few I return to:

• Pep Carrio – Each page could be a framed artwork

• Adam Koford – Cartoony, doodles

• Austin Kleon – Collages

• Danny Gregory – High diversity of styles

If you shy from Instagram and want the appropriate analog, Danny Gregory also wrote/edited the best printed book on private sketchbook journaling. An Illustrated Life showcases the pages of 50 different sketchbook artists. You are allowed to do whatever you want on your pages. — KK

Apple released OS 27 for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, and it comes with an AI version of Siri. It’s a vast improvement over the earlier versions, which were almost unusable. The new Siri works with all of the Apple apps, including Mail, Messages, Notes, Calendar, Photos, and Music. Your personal data stays on your phone, and even Apple can’t access it.

In David Pogue’s latest newsletter, he shows you 125 different things you can tell Siri to do. I’m using a lot of them already. Here are a few examples:

• (Highlight a folder of files on the Mac, right-click:) What’s the total of these invoices? What’s the average? (“The total for the six invoices found in your Receipts folder is $4,692.79. The average amount is $782.13.”)

• What are people waiting on me for? (Generates list from Mail, Messages, and Reminders. Incredible. Everything I did for this column was supposed to be for testing purposes only, but this one actually found stuff I’d forgotten I was supposed to do!)

• (Running late to a party:) What’s the apartment number!? (“The apartment number for the Bynum party tonight is 10-F.” Note: I never said what party or what day!)

• Change pickle to nickel. (You can use this when you’ve dictated a text message, and realize that there’s a mistranscription. Now you can correct it by voice! So much simpler than fussing around with the insertion-point cursor.)

— MF