I wanted a way to open my garage door remotely, so I bought the Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener Remote ($30). It took just a few minutes to install and configure. Now I can open and close the door with my phone, and get an alert when someone else opens it. It also works with voice assistants. — MF

The Noun Project is a huge searchable database of icons you can use in PowerPoint slides, websites, signs, or for any project requiring symbols. As a test, I searched on the word “chicken” and got hundreds and hundreds of chicken related icons. Most of the icons are free under a Creative Commons license, and if you pay a small fee, you don’t have to credit the creator. — MF

I am a huge fan of spending big bucks to explore space scientifically. But I bet humans won’t settle (live long-term) on Mars, or the Moon, or in space willingly. To get a glimpse of why not, watch the Netflix mini-series, A Year in Space. This documentary follows two astronauts as they subject themselves to the harsh punishment of living off our planet. We’ll keep improving the process of space fitness, but this documentary is very sobering about the steep cost of doing without the things we get for “free” on this planet. — KK

I’ve recently discovered magswitches. These are magnets you can turn off and on. I use them in my workshop to hold down fences, stops, and featherboards. When they are turned on, you can’t move them. When off, they lift off instantly. They are non-electronic; the switch is an ingenious mechanical contraption hidden inside a very tiny case. You can buy fixtures with magswitches built in, or you can buy the switches to make your own devices. I found that even a single magswitch alone, such as the small MagJig 95 ($26), is a useful stop in the workshop because you can position it anywhere quickly on a metal surface and have it instantly hold. — KK

This year for my Cool Tools Gift Guide, I picked past Recomendo favorites that I think would make great gifts like the the Sanuk Yoga Slings or the Philips Wake-up Light Alarm Clock. Although my absolute favorite gift (under $20), which I think every friend should have, is the Sweese Butter Keeper Crock. You can see the rest here. — CD

It’s wintertime, which for me means my skin and scalp get itchy. Lotion helps my skin, but I don’t want to put lotion in my hair. Instead, I’ve been using a J.R. Liggett’s Tea Tree & Hemp Oil Shampoo Bar ($7) and a $6 hair scalp massager to thoroughly shampoo my hair. This shampoo doesn’t seem to remove all the oil from my hair, so my scalp doesn’t get dry and itchy. — MF

If you find an iPhone and want to know whose it is, who lost it, use that phone to ask Siri: “Siri, who’s phone is this?” and it will tell you. — KK

I often need a quick way to find the best time for meetings with people in other time zones, and I find World Time Buddy is the best time converter visually. All of the overlapping business hours between two time zones are highlighted yellow, so I can easily decide the best hours to suggest. — CD

You have probably heard about the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the classic Game Theory problem. This website, called The Evolution of Trust, lets you play the Prisoner’s Dilemma against computer opponents who employ different strategies to maximize their winnings. You also get to see what happens when the computer players play against each other. — MF

This hand-drawn book is the best course on art and drawing I’ve seen. The cartoonist Lynda Barry has been teaching non-artists to draw, and she has somehow magically captured her class into this book called Making Comics. This guidance is particularly aimed at people who think they can’t draw. It will teach you how to draw, more importantly how to see, and even more importantly how to create with originality, by taking yourself out of the way to see what shows up. It refreshed my very concept of art. I’ve already given two copies of it away. — KK

I appreciate this r/personalfinance tip to control impulse purchases by adding things to a wishlist first. I sort of already doing this by “saving for later” a lot items on Amazon, but I will definitely practice this more intently and wait a week before I buy anything that is not necessary. — CD

When I first started shaving in high school my dad gave me a stytptic pencil. When this chalky stick is touched to razor nicks and cuts, it immediately stops the bleeding. One stick seems to last forever. Two new stytptic pencils cost $3.50. — KK

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