I got a clearer picture of present and future technologies thanks to Time’s list of the Best Inventions of 2023. There are 200 inventions listed and some consumer products you can even buy now. This may be silly, but I can’t wait until you can buy these reusable interlocking cup and plates at the store. — CD

On your next visit to San Francisco (or if you live there) walk across this small city on the SF Crosstown Trail. Even though I have lived in or near San Francisco for forty years, I discovered all kinds of gems, and stunning views that I had no idea existed. The route is engineered to pass through as many neighborhood parks as possible, with unexpected turns, and hidden treasures. Although you can do its 17 miles in one long day, we divided it into multiple days, ubering back to our start place. The entire walk is enjoyable, safe, and endlessly surprising. Download the app so you can easily follow the trail on your phone. For locals, the trail runs from the new Candlestick Point Park to Land’s End national park. If similar transecting crosstown walks exist for other great cities, let me know. — KK

This infograph titled “8 Factors of Happiness” is worthy of revisiting whenever you notice discomfort. I’ve found the quickest way to dispel unhappiness is to ask myself introspective questions to find the source. Based on these 8 factors of happiness, I would ask myself: 

• Am I feeling suspicion and resentment? 

• Am I living in the past (or in the future)? 

• Am I wasting time and energy fighting conditions I can’t change? 

• Am I isolating myself or withdrawing from the world? 

• Am I indulging in self-pity? 

• Am I expecting too much of myself? 

I then continue the line of questioning to gain more self-awareness or I pivot to an easy gratitude practice, like listing 10 things that make me happy on my fingers. This usually gets me out of my head and back to the present moment, as well as in alignment with the values and experiences that make me happy. — CD

This website is a tool for ranking a list of items such as movies, video games, restaurants, songs, or anything else.  You start by inputting an unordered list of the items you want to rank. Then you click the button, and it displays two items from the list. Click your favorite of the two, and then it displays another pair of things from your list. After several rounds, the site generates a ranked list for you, ordering your items from best to worst. — MF

In this article on navigating content overload, Jorge Medina outlines the importance of having a personal curation system. His premise is “You’re not lacking creativity, you’re overwhelmed” and talks about the concept of digital hoarding and how the overwhelming amount of internet content can lead to decision fatigue. He recommends being intentional about your curation system and using a framework like CODE, which stands for: 

1. Capture - Keep what resonates

2. Organize - Save for actionability

3. Distill - Find the essence

4. Express - Show your work

For me, the whole point of collecting links and keeping tabs open is for inspiration and to learn something new, so I really appreciate this reminder. As far as a “tool” goes, I’m still really happy with my OneTab recommendation from two years ago, and highly recommend it to organize your tab clutter. — CD

Meta (Facebook) quietly revealed their latest version of virtual reality tech as a demo between Mark Zuckerberg and podcaster Lex Fridman. The video of their interaction is worth watching to get a glimpse of how virtual presence might work between two people. Although each person is wearing goggles, they experience a full-sized 3D avatar of the other person without goggles. It’s a technological trick that seems to work, and might be in our future as something better than Zoom. — KK

"The Cows Are Mad" is a podcast series from BBC Radio 4 that explores the unsettling Mad Cow Disease epidemic of the 1990s. This strange and fatal neurological disease not only wreaked havoc on Britain's bovine population, it also claimed the lives of 178 humans. If you like zombie fiction, you’ll probably like this zombie nonfiction about cannibal cows. — MF

Photosweep is an iPhone app (sorry, no Android) that works like Tinder for your photos. It displays the photos in your library one at a time. Swipe left to delete, swipe right to keep. It has quite a few other useful features, too. It costs $20, or $10 a year. — MF

I didn’t know it, but I guess I did need another search engine for restaurants. Map of the Best filters only “the best” restaurants near you based on stars, awards and reviews. It eliminates a lot of the Yelp noise and is especially helpful for me in San Jose, California where there’s an abundance of Mexican restaurants serving delicious food. — CD 

The legendary publications of the Whole Earth Catalogs — all 20,000 pages — are now available online for free at the Whole Earth Index. These hi-res scans are almost better than the original newsprinted ones. They are a breeze to browse and navigate, and on a large monitor, very easy to read. First published in the 1970s and 1980s, these pages were the internet before the internet. The how-to books were pre-YouTube, and the articles pre-web blogs. Most of the content is still refreshingly informative today. — KK

This week a annular solar eclipse crossed a good swath of the US, but this “ring of fire” eclipse was not a total eclipse. The difference between an annular eclipse and a total eclipse is night and day. The next total eclipse in the US will be April 8 next year. The best source for tracking its path, with expected cloud coverage, duration of totality, and ideal viewing spots is this wonderful website, The Eclipse Company. — KK

Small gatherings are perfect for renewing old friendships and more importantly, for making new friends. Nick Gray has written a short book – The 2-Hour Cocktail Party – that gives you explicit step by step instructions on how to host highly structured parties at your home that maximize conversations. Gray has hosted hundreds of these non-dinner parties and his tips are exactly what works in my experience. I didn’t think I’d needed a book to help me throw a party, but his directions and check lists – down to what the emails should say, and what to do each day in the countdown before the party are incredibly useful, and even inspiring. Get this book, throw a 2-hour party with name tags and icebreaker questions, and it will be great! — KK

Mini Tokyo 3D is a website that displays a cartoon-like view of the worlds’ most populous city. It shows where trains are, represented by moving blocks. It also has links to live webcams throughout the city, so you can take a closer look at what’s happening in different areas. — MF

If you’re like me and have soured on Etsy, here’s a brand new handmade marketplace to keep in mind: Artisans Co-op. It just launched so I can’t vouch for any of the products, but I have been following their updates and “phases” and I appreciate their transparency and integrity. Their community vision is fair tech, not big tech, which is why they are member-owned by artisans. As of right now they have 65 shops and more than 1000 handmade items, and each day the selection keeps growing. — CD 

One of the advantages of having a poor memory is that I can read my favorite books every couple of years and they feel mostly new. But I’d rather remember them, and this video by Ali Abdaal has seven good tips for helping you remember what you learn. Two of the best tips:

• Teach Others — Explain what you've learned to others to reinforce what you learned.

• Active Recall — Test yourself and actively try to recall information rather than passively reviewing by rereading.

— MF

The online Merriam-Webster.com dictionary regularly adds new words based on usage and last month 690 words were added. Here is just a sample list of them, including new slang and words made popular by online culture, like edgelord noun, slang : someone who makes wildly dark and exaggerated statements (as on an internet forum) with the intent of shocking others. Also the word “hallucination” has an new definition meaning “a plausible but false or misleading response generated by an artificial intelligence algorithm.” Worth checking out to stay in the know. — CD

I’m having fun playing with Stained Glass Smash at glass.funwebsite.fun. You just click the screen to smash the glass and haphazardly create geometric works of art. It’s creative and easy, and it’s a soothing distraction. — CD

I’ve been using Pirate Ship for quite some time and I can vouch for its reliability. If you have a package or flat rate envelope you want to send by USPS or UPS, give it a try. Not only is the interface much easier to use than the USPS or UPS website, the shipping is cheaper, sometimes by a lot. — MF

Anytime you accept a free trial subscription for a smartphone app, cancel it immediately. You will still be able to use the app until the trial ends, and you won't get charged if you decide you don't like it but forget to cancel it before the trial expires. Here's how to cancel a subscription from Apple, and from Google. — MF

The new movie The Creator posits a future war between humans and AI robots, but unlike previous Hollywood science fiction, it wants you to cheer for the AIs and robots. The Creator has the most daring and innovative sci-fi cinematography since the original Blade Runner, a deep blend of real and could-be. It might set a new standard for sci-fi style. For its visual pleasure alone, I found it worth seeing it on a big screen in a theater. — KK