The best way to untangle a knotty tangle is to not to “untie” the knots, but to keep pulling the loops apart wider and wider. Just make the mess as big, loose and open as possible. As you open up the knots they will unravel themselves. Works on cords, strings, hoses, yarns, or electronic cables. — KK

Black Imagination is a collection of voices curated by conceptual artist Natasha Marin, who sought out Black individuals, including youth, LGBTQ+, incarcerated, and unsheltered people and asked them three questions: What is your origin story? How do you heal yourself? and Describe a world where you are loved, safe and valued. The result of which are these deeply moving testimonies/prose/dreams/poetry. This book has cracked my heart wide open and I’m honored to experience this literary space that expands beyond its bound pages. Here are three excerpts or three possible worlds from Black Imagination. — CD

I started using Burner Mail a couple of months ago and bought a premium subscription because I find it so useful. The basic concept is simple: it’s a service that generates unique email addresses that get forwarded to your regular email inbox. You can use a burner email address to sign up for newsletters or register a new online account. If you decide you don’t want email from a burner address (or if you start getting spam), it’s a simple matter of flipping a switch and you will never get email from that address again. Best of all, it has a browser extension so you can generate a new burner from the dashboard with one click and it will appear in the email field of any web site form. You can also use Burner Mail to send email anonymously.  — MF

I had a spare MacBook Air that was running the Linux OS. My daughter suddenly needed a laptop to replace her recently broken one, and so I had to reinstall the Mac OS on the Air. I had difficulty figuring out how to do it until I came across this Apple website that explained how to create a bootable installer for MacOS on a flash drive. Now I have an emergency USB drive and I’m sure will come in handy again. — MF

I was delighted to come across this repository of paper airplane designs on Foldnfly.com. I didn’t know so many possibilities existed! We had a fun family tournament in the backyard this weekend. There seems to be quick, video tutorials for all of the designs. — CD

College students can get Amazon Prime (free shipping, streaming, cheap music) for free their first 6 months of being a student and 50% off thereafter. Check out Prime Student. — KK

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been teaching myself to touch-type, but my progress has been slow and frustrating. I tried Apple’s built-in speech-to-text feature, but it has a bad habit of shutting off while I’m speaking. I recently discovered Dictanote (which runs in Google Chrome), and I really like its accuracy and the way it doesn’t shut off while I’m using it. It has a number of other features too, such as custom voice commands, which will paste text snippets triggered by a spoken phrase. I use it to write blog posts, reports, a novel I’m working on, and this newsletter. I now consider it to be a mission-critical tool. A lifetime subscription to Dictanote is $19. — MF

Something cool I just learned is if you have a supported smartphone, you can search for an animal on Google and view them in 3D! Here’s instruction on how to do it and a list of all the animals currently available at this time. — CD

Honey is an online coupon service much like the website Retailmenot. But instead of going to Retailmenot to get a discount code for an online shop (which works very well), Honey lives as an extension in your web browser and automatically pops up on the page when you go to a shopping site. It can also track prices. In my experience about 1 in 10 times Honey has a code I can actually use, but since it costs no money and zero effort to use, it is very much worth it. — KK

A surprisingly workable alternative to a Teflon frying pan is a ceramic coated pan. We use a GreenPan (it’s actually white ceramic inside) that unsticks as well as old Teflon. The cheap Teflon pans we use only last about 4 years. Our GreenPan is 5 years old and shows no wear. The 10 inch GreenPan is $25. — KK

I’m sure I’m afflicted by a lot of cognitive biases, but I like this list of 9 common biases, because of the short advice on how to overcome them. I’ll admit that I struggle with the halo effect — “when your overall impression of someone is influenced by one part of their character” — but I’m working on it and trying to appreciate humans in all their complexities. — CD

Dig CC Mixter is a library of music you can use for free in videos, performances, podcasts, video games, or other projects. It’s well organized and it’s easy to listen to samples of the music. — MF

I love this small, illustrated handbook for easing anxiety: Get Out of My Head: Inspiration for Overthinkers in an Anxious World. It has become a roadmap to help me navigate out of my anxieties and distortions, and it’s so much more magical than it is clinical. You can pick it up and start anywhere in the book at any time, and you’ll find playful ways to reframe your thinking and easy actionable advice to try now. My favorite part of the book is that it comes with an even smaller pocket book inside, with soothing illustrations, that acts as a visual tool to help you, “when something is wrong, but nothing is wrong.” — CD

I recently got a subscription to 12min, a library of condensed non-fiction books (audio and text). New titles are added all the time. I’ve found it especially useful to refresh my memory on books I read years ago, like Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled By Randomness, and Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans. A lifetime subscription to 12min is $39. — MF

You can’t have too many backups. You need at least one off-site online backup of your work. I previously recommended Crashplan but they have fallen behind in user interface, speed, and price. I am now a happy user of Backblaze, which has an unlimited plan for $60 a year. I back up 5 Terabytes (!!) of photos and videos (from more than one disk), and Backblaze was quick uploading and is super easy to manage. — KK

Sugru is a moldable rubber material you can use to repair things. When you open a pouch, it has the consistency of Silly Putty. You have about 5-10 minutes to work with it, then it begins to cure. After 24 hours it’s like hard rubber. It sticks to almost anything, including plastic and glass. I’ve used Sugru over the years to fix and modify dozens of things, from worn cables to a broken icemaker. An 8-pack is currently on sale for $12. — MF

I bought this gooseneck phone holder (Lamicall, $27) on Amazon not knowing what I would use it for exactly, but in what I can only call a “spark of genius,” I attached it to my stationary rower so I can watch streamable TV while I row. It has a rubber clamp stand that opens up 2.75 inches, so I can secure it to most furniture in my house. I am working out more and craning my neck less. — CD

Electric bikes are improving so fast that they are becoming an option for most people. But the field is young, flooded with startups, and gear changes so fast, keeping up with the best one is hard work. I recommend newbies go to the “Affordable ebike” playlist of the YouTube channel of EBR (Electric Bike Review), and start at the top (most recent) for in-depth, impartial, video reviews of ebikes that cost between $1,000 to $1,500. — KK

For the past decade David Byrne, the legendary rock musician, has operated his own “radio station,” which is really the curated playlist of his own musical explorations. Every month on his website David Byrne Radio, Byrne streams another 100-minute loop of new, old, classic, weird, wonderful, surprising, themed music he’s discovered and loves. He writes a short introduction, and supplies the full playlist. I’ve discovered (and bought) a lot of great music I first heard here. (In Nov 2018 he streamed a notable playlist of eternal protest songs.) — KK

I bought some Last Week Tonight “inside joke” stamps to help support the USPS — and because I am a fan of the show — and while I was on PhotoStamps.com I couldn’t help myself and ordered some custom photo stamps of my dog and cat. I was so happy when I got them, you can check them out here. Unfortunately, USPS is ending the customized postage program and the last chance you’ll have to purchase PhotoStamps is Wednesday, June 10. — CD