I’ve been listening to Japanese stories on Beelinguapp, a smartphone app that reads stories in 14 different languages. I set the speed at 50% so I can read along as a native speaker tells a simple story. Beelinguapp is free for iPhone and Android, and you can get the premium version (which has more stories and other useful features) for $40. — MF

For the past week I’ve been visiting frij.io to play with word magnets. Every day the word bank is swapped out with new nouns and verbs and emojis you can use to create poetry or funny phrases. Linking words and images in a fun and weird way works as a mental palette cleanser during my workday. — CD

I find a deep beauty in stylized diagrams required for patents. The clarity of the designs is a magical misdirection because the patent’s function is usually mysterious. Each week, the illustrations accompanying the patents filed the previous week at the US Patent office are featured in the blog Impeccable IP. It’s pure design eye candy. Enjoy! — KK

Every year for the last seven years, Cool Tools has published an annual holiday gift guide (you can check them out here). This year, we decided to make lists of things that made us happy in the year 2020. You can read my list here. Kevin and Claudia’s lists will run in the following weeks — MF

Good news. We’ve rounded up the best recomendos from the past four years of this newsletter and have organized 1,000 of them by subject, and illustrated most of them, in a 217-page book. This book, Recomendo: The Expanded Edition, is a better way to search for past recommendations, browse for cool stuff you missed, or catch up if you are a new subscriber. This hefty paperback is available in two flavors: a $13 B&W version, and $30 for a color version. It makes a great gift, too, with neat, uncommon, and useful things for almost anyone. — KK

If you’re looking for gift ideas, check out our Recomendo storefront. Here you’ll find the books, tools or products that we’ve recommended in our newsletter (if they are available on Amazon). Other Cool Tools Lab storefronts that you can check out are the items shared in the weekly What’s in My Bag? newsletter or the four favorite tools shared by guests on the Cool Tools Show podcast. — CD

Lately I’ve been posting photos of my sketchbook drawings of monsters, robots, space creatures, and contraptions on my Instagram feed, and people have asked if I could put them on various products. So I started a store on Society6, which has clocks, water bottles, bath mats, tables, notepads, stickers, and so on. Check it out here. — MF

A really fun parlor game you can play with friends and family at a distance is Among Us. It’s a bluff and deceit game like Werewolf or Mafia. The fun of the game is the cascading social ramifications of bluffing, being fooled, not being fooled, detective work, psy-ops, acting, being found out, persuading, leading, and getting surprised. The game runs on mobile phones ($0, or $2 for ad free) or Windows PC (everyone does NOT need to be on the same kind of device), and usually the group gathers in parallel on Zoom or Discord to chat during the game. There is some degree of coordination needed to perform mindless busy work tasks in the game, but otherwise no fast twitching is needed to really enjoy this social game. I think of it as playing Werewolf remotely. — KK

“Snoozing” is a Gmail feature that helps me hide and postpone emails until I am emotionally ready to handle them. Unfortunately, the default snooze time in Gmail is 6PM which is long after I want to be checking work emails. I only recently discovered how to change the default snooze times (No. 5 on this list) which is go to Google Keep > click on the “gear” icon in the upper-right corner > select “Settings” > and under “Reminder Defaults” you’ll find the times that affect Gmail snoozing. — CD

I have a soft spot for curiosities — unusual artifacts, either born or made. In fact, I have a whole wall of them in my studio. I recently added some weird mathematical shapes that could only exist because either they were grown biologically, or 3D printed. These lightweight nylon 3D artifacts are created by mathematician Henry Segerman, and sold in his Shapeways Shop. They are stunning, with bold, simple complexity, like the shells of creatures from alien planets. For art, they are reasonably priced. — KK

My daughter told me about director Harmony Korine’s brainstorming tool, which he demonstrates in this video. It’s loose, unstructured, and irrational, which may turn some people off, but my daughter gave me examples of how she’s used it with excellent results and I’m impressed. — MF

I shop online for 99% of the stuff I need. It’s magic when it works. On the very rare occasions when it doesn’t work, I want to talk to a human, preferably by voice. Since a live human is expensive, access to them is often hard to find. To get a working number to a live human for a retailer or manufacturer I go to GetHuman. It’s a free clearinghouse website. They have the best number, what prompts to hit, how long to wait, and they will facilitate callbacks if you want. — KK

I came across this encouraging Reddit post for all creatives: “Read this if you’re concerned your idea has been done before and you’re feeling unmotivated.” A reminder that “The idea doesn’t matter nearly as much as the execution does. No one will have your taste, your mind, your unique perspective on the matter.” — CD

We changed sides a few years ago. We went from being a live-Christmas-tree family to embracing a fake tree. Artificial trees have gotten so good looking, so inexpensive, and so easy to assemble, that we are now happy owners of a forever tree. And new ones get better each year. The most realistic trees come from National Christmas Tree Company; they are usually at the top of Wirecutter’s recommendations. The best ones have LED lights built in. We went with a budget, light-less 7.5ft tall Douglas Fir from National for $180. Once decked out with our own lights, and covered with ornaments, you can’t really distinguish it from a real tree. — KK

Journey to the Microcosm is a YouTube channel that uses high quality microscopic video to explore lifeforms invisible to the naked eye. The narration includes interesting stories and histories, too. — MF

I read a Cool Tools review of the Nada Chair S’portbacker from several years ago, and since my back has been sore from sitting at my desk so much lately, I bought one a couple of weeks ago. Basically, it’s an adjustable strap that goes around your knees and lower back, which allows you to lean back without slouching. As the maker says, you wear the chair. My back soreness is gone, and I don’t get as drowsy while working when I wear it. It also allows me to sit cross-legged on the ground comfortably for the first time in my life. — MF

The “Urgent-Important” decision making matrix seems to be trending real hard (according to all the productivity posts I come across 🤓), and it’s exactly that which inspired this task-mapping tool called Baller ToDo. It will help you visualize and figure out the stuff that really matters and most importantly, what you can put off. — CD

We have been practicing gratitude all wrong. Instead of noting what you are grateful for, you should try “mental subtraction” and think of one positive event or aspect of your life and then mentally take it away. Contemplate what your life would be like without your home, health, job, partner, etc. and the effect of this will be an enhanced sense of appreciation. — CD

Google’s Ngram is a nifty tool for researching historical word use, such as the first use of a word/phrase, or how its popularity changes over time. Ngram is 10 years old, but it got a significant upgrade last year so now it includes a lot more old books. I use Ngram to visualize — to a first approximation — the relative importance of a concept over time. Its cool interface lets me click on a date range, and then it will show me excerpts from the historical books from that date with that word or phrase. — KK

Even if you’ve never held a guitar, you can have fun playing a blues lead on this simple web app. Just press the play button to start the backing track and roll your cursor over the buttons at the top of the page. You can’t make a bad sound. If you’re aware of a more sophisticated virtual lead guitar app, let me know! — MF