It’s December, which means it’s time for blinry’s Advent Calendar of Curiosities. Every day this month, Sebastian “blinry” Morr will post interesting bit of little-known history, culture, or trivia. You can browse earlier years by altering the URL (it goes back to 2011). — MF

I went through all this past year’s recommendations from Recomendo and picked out a dozen items I think would make good inexpensive gifts. I posted my holiday gift list on our Cool Tools site, so many of my gift suggestions are somewhat toolish. — KK

After reading this post on How to begin a novel using AI, I’ve been having fun using this neural network, Talk to Transformer, to come up with prompts for new poems. I’ll just type in a few lines or start with an image that haunts me, and I’m always surprised by the seemingly original imagery that it gives back to me like this one (prompted by my aunt’s back tattoo of a phoenix): The days passed like smoke under my feet. “That should be enough for now.” She paused and sighed again. But still the phoenix kept going.— CD

I’ve long been a fan of Montezuma’s Absolute Black chocolate bars, which are made from 100% chocolate and cocoa nibs and no sweeteners of any kind. (The best way to enjoy unsweetened chocolate is not by chewing them, but by letting a square melt in your mouth.) Recently, Montezuma’s introduced a version with sea salt and almonds and it is even better. I buy mine at Trader Joe’s for $3 a bar. — MF

Magnetic “blocks” are a toy for constructing things. I keep a big pile of these magnetic tiles around our place for small kids visiting. The outline shape of these tiles are easy for toddlers to grasp, yet still satisfying (for a short while) for older kids. Like Magnatiles, embedded magnets along their edges assist in constructing shapes fast. What you can build is far more limited than what you can do with Lego or Kapla blocks, but these are quick and easy. I have bought many different “brands” of what are sometimes called Magnaforms; they are all interchangeable. I am partial to the 110 piece Magnetic Block set from Ailuki. — KK

I use my DaisyDisk app ($10) at least once a month to keep on top of what’s hogging up my disk space – usually it’s Dropbox folders that are synced locally that don’t need to be, or really large files I downloaded that I no longer need or apps I tried out that I don’t want anymore. It’s easy to use and understand, and it’s perfect if you’re like me and have a compulsive desire to organize and keep on top of what’s on your computer. — CD

I’ve gotten too casual with my email correspondence, and this blog post on “How to write better emails” reminded me that I should strive to be more effective and efficient with my communication. All of the tips are useful but the ones I really need to work on are 1) Use specific dates instead of “yesterday” or “tomorrow.” And 2) Be specific on what you request from whom by referring to each recipient explicitly using the @ symbol. — CD

Earlier this week book author Caroline Moss tweeted, “If you go to therapy quote tweet this with the best thing you learned at therapy that way everyone else can get free therapy.” The hundreds of replies are filled with excellent advice. Examples:

• Don’t react. Sit with it until you know what you feel. Sit with it.

• It’s ok to not be busy and to not offer to others a reason I do or don’t do each thing.

• Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing things that you hadn’t learned yet.

• Anxiety causes me to put things off a lot and in group therapy we worked on “the 15 minute rule”. If something feels impossibly overwhelming I set a timer to work on it for 15 minutes and that takes away that “I’m about to swan dive into a bottomless hole” feeling.

• The only things I owe people are straightforwardness and kindness.

— MF

Here is where I go to counter pessimism. Every day, one piece of good news, made graphically beautiful, is served up by Beautiful News Daily. Available on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, RSS feed, and the web. It’s like breathing pure oxygen. — KK

Every year the editors of Cool Tools curate a number of gift suggestions selected from our website, newsletters, videos, and podcasts. This year, I’m recommending the Bug-a-salt fly shooter, a chimney charcoal starter, Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 synthesizer, and several other things that would make good gifts. Check out all my picks here. — MF

I bought this 11 x 18 inch Fiskars Ultralight Kneeling Cushion in 2011 for $8 and have used it hundreds of times since then. It has come in handy when repairing appliances, working on and washing cars, weeding, and any other activity that requires getting on my knees. More recently I bought these $7 Fiskars Ultralight Knee Pads, which let me crawl around the backyard or garage without pain. —MF

This is not like those cheesy, motivational posters you’ve seen. This is a collection of effective action plans to defeat procrastination. Every tip feels new and helpful and mind-opening. You can download your own poster to print out here. — CD

Notes is the default built-in note taking app that syncs between Mac OS and iOS. The new thing for me is using it as a dictation device on my iPhone, since I am a lousy thumb typer. When I want to make a note, I depress the microphone icon near the space bar on the virtual keyboard in Notes and talk. My voice is transcribed into text with remarkable accuracy, even in noisy environments. Notes then syncs these written notes onto my laptop. — KK

Here’s a problem I frequently encounter when I’m trying to use public Wi-Fi at the airport — the login page won’t load on my browser. This troubleshooting cheat sheet lists the different things you can try to get a Wi-Fi login page to open. In short, they are: 1) Turn off alternative DNS servers 2) Try to open the router’s default page 3) Open a non-HTTPS site in incognito 4) Restart your device 5) Create a new network location. One or more of these actions usually does the trick. — MF

So much to see, so little money. Why not maximize your travel by getting the most per dollar? The World’s Cheapest Destinations will guide you to the best least expensive countries in the world, where a small budget will purchase you ten times the joy of a more expensive region. Part of my secret to travel is to visit these countries listed, which are usually the most interesting, too. Now in its 5th updated edition, this succinct guide is one of the best investments in life you can make. — KK

Kevin and Mark host a weekly podcast called Cool Tools. For more than 5 years now they have invited notable and creative people to talk about their favorite tools. This year, I took the transcripts from the best 150 episodes and pulled text, added images, and laid it all out in a 300-page book titled Four Favorite Tools. It is now available on Amazon in both color ($39.99) and B&W ($12.99) versions. Inside the book are hundreds and hundreds of recommendations for apps, gadgets, tools — but my recommendation is the book itself as a handbook for inspiration. — CD

Modern printers are made to allow you to print from your iOS device. But we have an old wireless laser printer and I couldn’t get it to play nice with my iPhone. Then I found a $20 Mac app called Printopia. It was surprisingly easy to set up. Now everyone in my family can print from their mobile devices. — MF

Old yellowed plastic looks unrecoverable but it can be magically brought back to its original whiteness or bright color using hydrogen peroxide gel from a hair salon. The gel prevents the concentrated hydrogen peroxide from slipping off; you also wrap it in cling plastic to keep it moist. Plenty of YouTubers demonstrate how they restore old computers, old toys, old appliances with this stuff. I used Super Star Cream Peroxide to bring back white plastic parts in our bathroom. (Also good for whitening old bones.) — KK

When I visited Paris this year, I made a pit stop at the Papier Tigre store to stock up on cool stationary things and found this pink elastic pen holder strap that I completely geeked out about. It holds two pens and can fit A4-A6 notebooks, and all the colors are great. I was kicking myself for not buying more of them, because the online shop doesn’t ship to the US, and I couldn’t find a cheaper alternative on Amazon. Luckily, I found Papier Tigre on CWPencils.com. They don’t have all the colors, but if you want one, get it while you can because last week they were out of stock. — CD

I only recently learned that Amazon Prime subscribers (here’s a link for a free 30-day trial) are entitled to one free Kindle book a month. The program is called Amazon First Reads, and you can see the current selections here. — MF