I bought the Junior Game Inventors Kit to build with my stepson. We had a lot of fun creating a board design and brainstorming “consequence" and “reward” cards. We didn’t get a chance to finish and play the game, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves. Very reasonable price for a kit that ignites creativity. — CD

Pomegranate’s Charley Harper puzzles are beautiful and sturdy. Each piece is glossy and locks well with other pieces, and it’s a fun distraction for a few hours. I’ve bought two so far — Tree of Life and Exquisite Creatures. — CD

I always carry a deck of cards. Not to play card games, but to practice sleight of hand. It’s easy to have a conversation and practice moves at the same time, and it prevents me from fidgeting. This 4 DVD set, The Royal Road to Card Magic is a bargain at $15, and a great way to get started. — MF

I bought this $5 pocket trick in 2015. It’s a tiny plastic bottle with a spherical base. It has a weighted bottom to keep it from tipping over. I can make it lie on its side, but no one else can (unless they know the secret, and surprisingly few do). Drive your friends crazy with frustration. — MF

You can’t win fairly at carnival games, because they aren’t fair. Here’s a great fun tutorial that teaches you a few tricks for the ones you might win. — KK

I’ve been building 3-string guitars for about 10 years. It’s easy to do and they sound better than you probably think. Learn how to make one at Cigar Box Nation. They are even easier to play. Here’s a 10-minute video that will have you sounding like you know what you’re doing. — MF

One of my favorite uses for the supercomputer I carry in my pocket is to tell me when high or low tide will be, and how high or low. I live near the ocean, so tide level is important for beach walks. My goto tide app is TideTrac, $3 on iOS. — KK

V for Wikipedia recreates the childhood joy of getting lost in my old Encyclopedia set. One subject would inspire me to look up another and I’d end up flipping back and forth between pages and indexes for hours. Now I can use my iPhone and seamlessly jump to the next subject with a quick tap. Honestly, this app is so easy and enjoyable to use — totally worth the $4.99. — CD

I signed up for a free 30-day trial of Skillshare because I wanted to improve my drawing skills, and I did. There’s more than 16,000 video classes to choose from. A monthly subscription is $15 per month, but I opted to cancel before the trial ended — they make it really easy and in fact, when I went to cancel they extended my trial another month! They also offer classes in photography, film, cooking and writing. — CD

I used the iNaturalist app when I was hiking and took a picture of a tree that I wanted to know the name of. I just uploaded the picture and labeled it as “I don’t know what this is.” The next morning, I was happily surprised to see an email alerting me that another user identified it for me! It’s like a collaborative classroom on your phone. — CD

This four-step method for learning difficult subjects was developed by physicist Richard Feynman when he was a student at Princeton University. All the steps are important, but the most important step is the one where you have to teach what you’ve learned in a simple way so a new student can understand it. If you can’t do that, you don’t really understand it yourself. — MF

I love good explainer videos. The best are made by Kurzgesagt. Their 5-minute videos are stunningly animated and cover topics such as automation, genetic engineering, gamma ray bursts, and ebola. They often leave me in awe about our universe. — MF

My favorite example of how video is displacing much of what books used to do is this short YouTube video on the History of Japan. In only 9 minutes it covers the complex, twisted, obscure history of Japan but with insight and clarity. (One of its subtle tricks is to use nick names instead of proper names for people.) The clip has racked up 30 million views because it teaches so well. — KK

Sideways Dictionary uses analogies to explain technology. You can contribute your own, upvote those you like or downvote those you don’t find helpful. Here’s one to describe API: “It’s like a LEGO brick. An application without an API is like a LEGO brick without nodules (are they called nodules?) – it’s not much fun and you can’t build anything new with it.” — by Nick Asbury. — CD

Lynda.com has an excellent collection of training videos for learning programming, design, bitcoin fundamentals, bookkeeping, and much more. Lynda charges a monthly fee, but if you have a library card, the chances are you can become a Lynda member for free. Here’s a link for L.A. residents to use Lynda (and other great stuff, like the digital edition of the New York Times) for free. — MF

A great one-episode podcast that taught me a lot about negotiation that I wished I had learned decades ago: “How Creatives Should Negotiate”, run by Ramit Sethi on the Tim Ferriss podcast. As the title suggests this 1.5-hour seminar is aimed at creatives such as photographers, musicians, designers, and the like, but really the advice is useful to anyone. — KK

Two Slate journalists attended a class on negotiation skills at Columbia Business School and created a 10-episode podcast called Negotiation Academy. After listening to the series, I feel like I can negotiate a better deal for myself from now on. — MF

A reminder of the progress we all enjoy. A curious fellow decides to spend six months growing his own wheat and vegetables, making his own cheese and meat, evaporating his own salt in order to make his own sandwich from scratch. He spent $1500 on this lunch, and in this short, How To Make A $1500 Sandwich, he gives the particulars of what is really involved in our everyday consumption. Like the Toaster Project, which was an earlier attempt by an artist who spent a year to make a $30 electric toaster from scratch (iron ore, petroleum plastic), it conveys in concrete terms the huge subsidy we get from modern civilization. I repeatedly return to these brilliant examples. — KK

Anki is a free flashcard program that uses the Spaced Repetition System (SRS) to present words or facts you have trouble remembering more frequently than ones you can recall easily. I’m using Anki based on the advice in the book Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It, which I highly recommend. — MF

Tiny Cards is a free smartphone app that lets you make spaced repetition flashcards to help you learn languages, history facts, the elements, constellations, or anything else. I’m using it to help me with my Japanese vocabulary. — MF