The TV sitcom Ted Lasso is as good as everyone says it is. It’s a sophisticated feel-good comedy drama that we really needed in 2020. It’s full of no cliche, no sap, smart positivity that is rare and so welcomed. The world would be a better place if there were more Ted Lassos. The show is very bingeable. I’m eager for more seasons. The 10-part first season runs on Apple TV. If you’ve bought an Apple product in the past year (or know someone who did), you may have free access to Apple TV. — KK

A few years ago, Mark recommended the no-graphics version of CNN’s website and I just recently discovered the text-only version of NPR. It’s very serene scrolling through news headlines without attention-grabbing images or annoying ads. — CD

Until recently, I used crumpled sheets of newspaper to start fires under my charcoal chimney, but I stopped subscribing to print editions of newspapers. I started buying Weber Lighter Cubes instead. They’re the size of an ice cube and ignite charcoal briquettes even faster than newspaper. — MF

In a recent issue of my Magnet newsletter, I asked readers to help me separate two coffee cups that somehow got stuck together. (It’s the second-to-last item in the newsletter.) Almost all of the hundreds of suggestions I received involved cooling the small cup and heating the big one to allow thermal expansion to do its work, but that didn’t help. Can Recomendo readers come up with a solution? Send email to: markfrauenfelder+stuckcups@gmail.com — MF

I came across this cool visual guide to making your own spice blends on Reddit. It made me realize I should be utilizing my coriander more often. — CD

Every now and then I come across some text whose style I find attractive and I wonder what font they are using. I grab a shot of it and slip it into the “What the Font” website which usually can (90% of the time) identify the font. I don’t know if there is a better identifier but this free one works for me. — KK

I’m a fan of colorful plates, cups, and bowls, so when I saw this set of six porcelain bowls last month on Amazon I bought them without first checking the size. (A rookie mistake!) Fortunately, they aren’t the size of thimbles. In fact, they’re bigger than I expected, which is a bonus, as I’m a hearty eater. — MF

Kiddle.co is an illustrated, large-font search engine designed specifically for kids . It’s powered by Google Safe Search so only family-friendly results are returned. If any “bad” words are entered you get an “Oops, try again!” I tried to break it by searching for whatever “adult” words I could think of. “Death” told me to try again, “Dying” directed me to a Death facts for kids page, which is interesting. I don’t have a kid, but if I did this would be their homepage. — CD

Unexpectedly, you can decrease the fatigue of zooming all day if you don’t see your own image on the screen all day. The easiest way to hide your self picture in Zoom is to hover over or right-click your image until a blue square appears in the upper right corner. Click on the 3 white dots, and in the dropdown menu, click on “Hide Self View”. Once it was gone I noticed the absence of an irritant I had not been aware of before. Zooming is calmer. — KK

My guilty pleasure is watching people work, watching machines work, and watching people and machines work together. I can’t explain it. I am utterly hypnotized by repeating exactitude. My source for mesmerizing videos of machines at work is the twitter feed of Machine Pix. — KK

A cleaning hack I just learned: cut the corner of the sponge I use solely for the cast iron vs all the other dishes. Found in The 30 Most Brilliant Cleaning Hacks of All Time. I guarantee you will find some tips you’ve never heard of before on this list, like microwaving your cleaning rag or using a mesh laundry bag in the dishwasher. — CD

As I write this, construction workers next door are nailing shingles on the roof. But I don’t hear the nail gun or the air compressor because I’m wearing my AirPods Pro and playing the sounds of coffee shop chatter at the Rainy Cafe website. You can mix in the sound of rain, too. The sound helps me concentrate. It’s better than silence. — MF

I bought Apple’s AirPods a couple of years ago and was fairly happy with them, but the battery life was disappointing. They would run out near the end of a one hour zoom meeting. I recently got the AirPods Pro and they not only have much better battery life (2.5+ hours of talk time) they also have excellent noise cancellation. I don’t need my big heavy Bose Noise canceling headphones any longer! — MF

I’m upgraded my old period tracker for the Stardust Period Tracker (iOS only). It integrates science and astronomy to link my menstrual cycle to the moon cycles and makes “predictions” for my symptoms, cravings and moods, and you know what? It’s pretty spot on! I appreciate getting “day of” notifications warning me that my progesterone levels might be high and to avoid “the dark side” (aka mood swings). — CD

This Stanford TEDx talk, Designing Your Life, serves two purposes: in 25 minutes it introduces the modern method of “design thinking,” developed at the Stanford Design School, which is a powerful process for designing anything (a product, a house, a service, a city). This is the best succinct summary of this cool tool that all creators should know about. Then this talk illuminates how you can apply this “design thinking” to designing your own life. The process maps well, and I realized that I have been using its principles as I deliberately design my life. — KK

It’s soup season and I got tired of having to wait for my bowl to cool down in the microwave, or worse, the inevitable disaster that happens when I try to take it out with a kitchen towel or too quickly without one. These Safe Grabs are a successfully pitched Shark Tank product and they work as a trivet or a splatter guard. They are heat resistant, so you can just store them in the microwave and use it when you need to pull out a hot bowl or plate. — CD 

“Most of us don’t plan ahead for losing a job, for dealing with a week-long water outage, or for surviving the night if our home goes up in smoke,” writes the author of this 30,000 word guide for surviving life-altering events. Unlike doomsday prepper manuals, this one offers common sense advice for dealing with uncommon circumstances. — MF

Handheld steamers are pretty inexpensive now, and I’ve had mine for almost two years. I never use our old iron. Steaming kills bacteria and removes odors so I’m washing my clothes a lot less. Here is a great how-to article on dry-cleaning your clothes at home. “It’s a lot less complicated than it sounds—you only need homemade spray, a clothing brush or a steamer, and you’re ready to DIY dry clean.” — CD 

The inexpensive Streamlight LED flashlight is so tiny you have to see it to believe it. But it’s much brighter than my smartphone flashlight so I keep it with me in my pocket. It uses 4 button cell batteries (included). — MF

The easiest way I found to share our wifi with visitors to my office or our home is with a large QR code printed on heavy paper, and posted wherever. Visitors aim their phone at the glyph and are then logged in. Easy-peasy. You can generate the Wifi QR code at this free website: Pure JS Wifi Code Generator. SSID is the name of your wifi, and “key” is the password. — KK