Wordstotime.com is a quick way to calculate how many minutes it would take to read a specific number of words out loud. I recently needed to fill up at least 8 minutes of talk time for an audio recording, so I started with this website and aimed for 1,250 words as I typed. — CD

Anyone can accidentally kill a bicyclist if you open your car door at the wrong time. Learn the “dutch reach” method (Holland is a serious bike country) to open your door mindfully and save a life. — KK

Everambient is a $2 iPhone app that plays algorithmically generated ambient music. I’ve been listening to it all day while I work. Check out samples here. — MF

This ThorFire is the brightest, cheapest ($15), smallest, lightest LED flashlight that runs on a single AA (rechargeable) battery. Rugged, made of metal, it will stand up on its end. I have them everywhere. — KK

I’ve stumbled upon these ten little drawings of happiness practices all over the internet, and they still make me happy. I like learning untranslatable words that stretch the imagination. My favorite from this set is the idea of forest bathing. — CD

If you have an iPhone, Narwhal is the best app to access Reddit. It’s snappy, and highly customizable and much easier to use than Reddit’s own app. — MF

I love reading The Sunday Soother by Catherine Andrews — a newsletter about practical spirituality. Each week she shares her thoughts and processes for slowing down and creating more meaning in life, as well as articles, books, beauty products, recipes and more. It’s like getting an intimate letter from a friend. Each email is a tool for self-reflection. Her last two issues were dedicated to grief and ambiguous loss — which I learned is a particular type of loss that lacks a definition and closure. She solicited stories from her readers and here is what was shared. — CD

The fantastic documentary Free Solo deserves all praise it has received, including its recent Oscar. The film follows one guy’s attempt to climb the vertical face of Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes. A single slip he dies. I could barely watch it, it was that crazy good. As the climber’s friend put it: this demands an Olympic gold medal performance, except here, if you don’t get the gold, you die. The film has suspense, drama, emotion, and explores maniacal obsession and perfection. Five stars. Now streamable. — KK

My wife and I tore through John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood. It’s the story of Theranos, the fraudulent Silicon Valley startup that promised to revolutionize health but instead perpetrated a potentially murderous scam. The founder surrounded herself with ultrarich powerful people who were blind to obvious warning signs because they were so enamored with the idea that they were going to make billions of dollars. This real-life tale beats any fictional corporate thriller. — MF

Here’s a tip I haven’t tried yet, but it sounds like a great idea. When you’re leaving a foreign country and still have some of the local currency, take it to a Starbucks and load it onto a gift card. You can use the card later in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. — MF

Another use for Starbucks cards

(This tip comes from Recomendo reader Andy Kegel) “More and more rebates come as prepaid credit/debit cards. It’s hard to find something for exactly the face amount, so I feel like I’m always gifting back part of the rebate via unspent residuals. So now I put the whole amount on a Starbucks card or similar and I can spend the entire face value.” — MF

The Vise-Grip self-adjusting wirestripper is the best wirestripper, period. It perfectly strips the insulation off of small wires for electronic projects, or large wires for running power. No muss, no fuss; it just works automatically. This hand tool fits kids, and pros. It’s the one I grab. This is not just my experience, but also the opinion of Donald Bell who tested 10 different wire strippers for Cool Tools. This is the wirestripper you want. — KK

Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot of cold matcha lattes, and I’m using a terrific milk frother to make them: the Nespresso Aeroccino ($71). I pour in about 4 ounces of cold unsweetened almond milk and add a teaspoon of matcha powder, then press the button for 2 seconds (a quick press will automatically heat the milk, which my wife does for cappuccinos). In about 20 seconds, I have a delicious frothy latte. The frother is nearly silent and very easy to clean, because the stirrer is magnetic and pops right off the stem. — MF

I uploaded a copy of my Chrome bookmarks to Mailist, and now once a week I get an email newsletter with 10 random links to pages and sites I have saved. It has reunited me with travel ideas, things I want to buy, and useful online tools like this fabric calculator chart. I also use it as a way to clean house and delete bookmarks I no longer have use for. — CD

Japanese youth have more fun with fashion than anyone. When I need a dose of pick-me-up, a bit of fresh thinking, or a smile, I head over to the Tokyo Fashion Tumblr, which features the latest eye-popping street-fashion finds on the streets of Tokyo. Never dull. — KK

I’ve been cutting my own hair since I was in college. I’ve used a lot of different electric hair trimmers, but just recently I got one that has ceramic coated blades. It clips hair much more efficiently than plain steel blades. As a bonus, this one is cordless, making it easier to maneuver. — MF

Tipped off by the comprehensive research at America’s Test Kitchen, I’ve found that the best — really the only — stain remover for laundry that really works is sodium percarbonate, which is a powder you need to mix in water before each use. (No liquid spray works nearly as well.) You then soak garments for 6 hours and wash. It completely removes just about any food stain, even stale ones. There are generic versions available but a proven brand of percarbonate is OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover. — KK

For me, this article on Lifehacker was less about how to make more money and more about how other people are budgeting their income. Five different people share their spending, goals, plans and advice about finances. It’s really refreshing to have a candid conversation about money, even if I wasn’t the one participating in it. Another article about money I found interesting this week was this one in Fast Company. — CD

The Internet Archive has a chrome extension for their Wayback Machine that has become essential to my browsing. I can search through previous versions, lookup domain info and traffic statistics, and I can even look at public tweets linking back to the website. — CD

It’s been true for a while, but some travellers don’t realize that the best currency exchange rates you’ll get will be at a local ATM, even with a fee. It is also by far the most convenient way to change money. I’ve gotten local currency from my debit card in every country I have visited (though not every local ATM will accept foreign cards — look for American credit card logos on the machine as a sign that it will.) I raised the limit on the ATM card to its max since this is my only source of currency. — KK

You can easily look up the meaning of words by entering define:word in your browser’s search bar, like this define:doryphore. — MF