We love our all electric Chevy Bolt, which we’d had for 5 years. It gets 260 miles on a charge, with 200 horsepower, which has been plenty for our needs. The 2023 model goes for $26,000, but regrettably GM is going to stop making them and sell only a more expensive base model. Since the Bolt is the most affordable decent American electric car available, you can still get one now while the inventory lasts. — KK

Apple AirPods Pro are not only state-of-the-art stereophonic headphones, they are also state-of-the-art noise cancelling headphones, and to a lesser extent, passable hearing aids for some people. In short, they are far more capable sonic devices than first appears. I keep learning new abilities they have. A great way to get a sense of what the Airpods Pros can do is outlined in this short article by Jason Kottke on “customizing your Airpods for even better sound.” — KK

This Space Elevator is another playful and cute project by Neal.fun. Scrolling up will take you on a trip to Space while exploring the atmosphere and its many layers, past high-dwelling animals and cruising altitude for aircrafts and different types of clouds. There's even a press play button for elevator music along the way as you ascend. I don't know if this is meant for children, but it's fun and educational for me too. — CD 

This Two-Minute Burnout Checkup helped me understand the primary factors of chronic stress and burnout. I can sense physically when I am nearing burnout, but before this I didn't understand that it's more than just feeling exhausted. This checkup evaluates six sources of chronic stress, including workload, values, reward, control, fairness, and community. You rate your level of stress from 0-10 for each one and add up all the numbers to get a score out of 60. I think this would be very helpful if I'm consistent in tracking my score everyday. Here’s a link to the survey. — CD

The iFixit Jimmy is a blunt, flexible steel blade attached to a handle. Because the blade is so thin, it's far more effective than a screwdriver for prying items apart. I use it to open battery access covers on electronic devices, or to carefully pry open laptops and phones for upgrading or replacing components. — MF

Upload any PDF (up to 10MB) to ChatPDF and it will generate a summary of the PDF and offer three sample questions you can ask about the PDF. Or you can ask it any question you can think of and the AI system will provide an answer in simple English. I had fun uploading Edgar Rice Burrough’s 1917 novel, A Princess of Mars, and asking questions about it. — MF

In an act of unabashed self-promotion, I highly recommend you get my new book: Excellent Advice for Living.  It’s the result of 70 years of trying to live the good and right life. There is a lot I am now certain of that I wished I had known when I was younger. So I wrote down these hard-earned bits of wisdom into brief telegraphic lessons with as few words as possible (life is short!).  Here are a couple examples:

• Rule of 3 in conversation : To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just did. Then again, and then once more. The third time’s answer is the one closest to the truth.

• If you are looking for something in your house and you finally find it, when you are done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.

• Taking a break is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.

• To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.

• Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible. Instead aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.

There are 450 more! You can pre-order Excellent Advice for Living now; it ships in a week. — KK

One of the best books I’ve read recently is Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Quest for the Elements, published in 2019. Although it is not a long book, there are 3 books coursing through it. One theme is the slow discovery of the primeval chemical elements. That story would be enough for most books. A second is the convoluted and incredible story of alchemy, which was amazingly persistent throughout the birth of chemistry. And the most important story is the slow emergence of science, and how difficult its birth was. I found news and insight on nearly every page, and am shocked at how little I knew about the most basic stuff that our world is made of. Highly recommended. — KK

I wear one pair of shoes for everything. Given that I walk 5 miles a day on a treadmill, they started to smell bad. I bought a spray bottle of Elite Peppermint Foot & Shoe Deodorizer and sprayed my feet and the inside of my shoes with it. The bad smell instantly went away, and now I smell like a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s, which I approve of. — MF

I can't explain why but clicking through these random airport views all over the world is very relaxing. It's lo-fi and nostalgic and slow. I think part of its soothing effect might be the vast aerial view similar to the Overview Effect or state of awe that some astronauts experience in Space. — CD

I’ve been playing the Rogue video game off and on for more than 35 years, since the late 1980s. The object is to descend a monster-filled dungeon (displayed using ASCII characters, not graphics) and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor on the lowest level. I’ve never succeeded; if a monster doesn’t kill me then I starve to death (food is scarce). I hope to beat it before I die in real life! — MF

I've been trying to create a new habit of asking myself "what is my intention?" before I speak. Sometimes I communicate to empathize, or to think out loud, but a lot of the time my intention is to connect and to be understood. This article on Alan Alda's 3 rules for expressing your thoughts is useful for all types of communication. They are: 1. Make no more than three points 2. Explain difficult ideas in three different ways and 3. Make important points three times. This is helpful for me because I speak in emotions and imagery, and if I want to be understood by someone who is more logical-minded I have to remind myself to use analogies rather than metaphors. — CD

We don’t normally allow single-task gadgets into our kitchen, but there is one we do: an avocado knife. Now that avocados are available year-round, we grab this simple device to open, pit, and scoop out the creamy green. The Kuhn Rikon Avocado Knife has a flexible scalloped blade, with a blunt serration on one edge and two probes on the other. You use the safe edge to open the avocado, and the probes to stab the pit to remove it – but neither are sharp enough to cut your hand. The blade is non-stick coated, flexible, and curved enough to scoop out the meat in one stroke, and to spread if wanted.  The whole operation is done with one easy-to-clean hand tool.  In a Cool Tools podcast, Nathan Myhrvold, the gourmet nerd who owns every single esoteric and expensive culinary tool there is, told me that this $13 device was his favorite kitchen tool. — KK

This substack posting called “How to use AI to do practical stuff: A new guide” is the best intro yet for using the new generative AI bots. Ethan Mollick, a professor at Wharton, has been testing all the current bots in depth, and his advice is perfect for those just starting to explore them. As of today the best FREE version of a chatbot is the “Creative” mode in Bing, by Microsoft. You can really use AIs to code stuff, even if the only language you know is “human.” Read this quick cheat sheet to get a real sense of what you can do in real life with these emerging tools. — KK

BuyItForLife is a subreddit where people recommend and discuss high quality products that last a lifetime. This website is a ChatGPT interface that lets you ask questions about everything that’s ever been mentioned in the subreddit. Here are the results it gave me when I asked for the best spinner luggage. — MF

Mental Supply is a collection of mental health tips specifically for startup founders, but I’m finding them very useful. Here’s one attributed to Gary Keller who wrote The ONE Thing: “Multitasking is often misunderstood as doing multiple tasks at the same time, but it actually refers to task switching. This incurs a time penalty, particularly with complex tasks. To be more efficient, focus on one task at a time.” There’s a lot of helpful advice available here for when you are feeling angry, burnt out, insecure or overwhelmed. — CD

Youtube history is my latest obsession. There’s now a ton of very good history YT channels that tackle history in oblique and idiosyncratic ways. One of my favorite streams is ToldInStone. They tackle the kind of questions I’ve always had, but couldn’t find in books or other programs. Like: how fast was Rome mail? How did the ancients prove their identity? What were their kitchens and bathrooms like? Much further in the past, North02 tackles prehistory. What were humans like 1 million years ago, what kind of life in the Sahara when it was tropically green? And so many more! — KK

Probably the most personal recommendation I’ll ever make is La Cuenta, a weekly newsletter that explores the financial and personal costs of undocumented living in the U.S. As the first born child of two immigrant teenagers from Mexico, I experienced the mental and emotional toll firsthand, but this newsletter has been vital in my own cultural understanding and in challenging the stereotypes perpetuated by media and politics. The creators behind it are Antero Garcia, an associate professor at Stanford and Alix Dick, a filmmaker and human rights activist from LA. — CD

Unlike most ice cream makers that use a paddle to scrape solidified ice cream from the interior of a chilled drum, the Ninja Creami uses metal blades that rotate at high speed to shave frozen homemade mix into deliciously textured ice cream. I prepared vanilla ice cream sweetened with a touch of honey for my friends, and it was an instant success.One caveat: it’s loud when in operation. — MF

I had no idea how useful this small and extendable LED flashlight by Vibelite would be when I bought it. We keep it out on a side table in the living room, which is a perfect place for it because we often need to fix something behind our TV or Wifi setup and I’m always searching underneath our recliner to find my dog’s runaway toys. I'm going to buy one more to keep in my basement. — CD