This website uses simple interactive animations to explain how a wind-up watch works. It begins with the power source—a spring—and illustrates how the power is transferred through gears to keep the watch running for up to 40 hours. The site then moves to the escapement mechanism and other key components found in modern mechanical wristwatches. — MF

Many books would do better as an article, and many films should be a short. I’ve really been enjoying Short of the Week, a stream of short videos that carry the punch of a long movie. These shorts can deliver drama, new worlds, innovation, illumination, surprises, and are rarely boring. Wonderfully diverse in form and topic, they are also widely international. The home site has background info on each, but you can also subscribe to its YouTube channel. There’s great stuff here, from Oscar winners to the most ultra indie. — KK

Managing creative people is a whole ‘nother skill than just being creative yourself. The best practices for managing a group that is persistently creative and innovative is described in Ed Catmull’s bestselling book on Pixar. Catmull co-founded Pixar when it was a computer hardware company, and ran it through its glorious run of producing one hit movie after another. His book Creativity, Inc., recounts the many lessons he learned. I found it a page-turner because throughout the book he focuses on his mistakes, failings, and what he got wrong. Almost no one does that, and yet I found it irresistibly the most powerful way to teach. Get the newly released updated edition, where, true to his spirit, Catmull expands on what he got wrong in the original book! — KK

I think wisdom can be given by a person of any age or gender, but as a woman turning 40 I was really grateful to hear these experienced lessons from a 44-year-old woman. Below are a few of them. — CD  

• Start or end every day with writing about your life. There’s always something buried underneath the to do list in your head, something you didn’t realise you felt, that when written down, will make everything clearer.

• Allow friendships to come and go. Don’t cling onto friendships because they are old. Cling on to them because they bring you joy and comfort and laughter.

• The small details of your day matter. Be it your first cup of coffee in the morning,  or the way you make your bed, or a walk through the park on the way to work, life is year upon year of stacked up small joys like these. Take pleasure and pride in them.

• Put your phone down.
  Put your phone down.
  Put your phone down.

The Voyager Golden Record, included on the 1977 Voyager space missions, is a collection of Earth's sounds, music, and images intended as a message for extraterrestrial intelligence. My friend David Pescovitz won a Grammy for the Voyager Golden Record 3xLP Box Set he co-produced, which includes the original content and an illustrated book. Normally priced at $110, it is currently on sale for $88. — MF

I watch sad movies when I'm feeling hormonal, low in spirits, or when the source of my sadness is unknown. Inducing tears has always helped me release stagnant energy in my body, and the website Cry Once a Week seems to expedite that emotional process. I'm not embarrassed to admit that a short 5-minute scene from Pixar's 'Inside Out' was enough to make me weep. If you provide them with your email, they'll send you a free PDF detailing the benefits of crying.— CD

Jane Friedman of Electric Speed recently asked her readers to share their favorite meditation apps and reasons why, and here is the complete list. Calm, Insight Timer and Headspace seem to be most popular. — CD 

Since I have little people in my life again (grandchildren) I am always on the lookout for cool toys. I find construction toys keep kids interested the longest. A clever design that works great for toddlers are bristle tiles which resemble giant velcro. Long combs on every surface stick together enough yet pull apart easily for tiny hands. Like Magnatiles, a little bit of helpful stickiness assists in making things. There are lots of knockoff brands. I don’t even know which one was the original, but Picasso Bristle Tiles work fine. — KK 

Every December, Tom Whitwell, a managing consultant at Magnetic, compiles a list of 52 interesting facts and stories from the year. Here are a few examples from his 2023 list:

• The US Defense Department earns $100m/year operating slot machines used by soldiers on their bases.

• Psychedelic cryptography is a way of concealing messages (normally in videos) so that only people who’ve taken LSD can receive the messages.

• Scotland’s forest cover is nearly back to where it was 1,000 years ago, while England has risen to levels last seen in 1350.

— MF

This article in Fast Company discusses the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) in the workplace and gives advice on how to cultivate it. Three key signs that you might be lacking EQ are: 1. You often provoke unexpected reactions. 2. You don’t get the help you need from colleagues, and 3. You get passed over for promotions or other opportunities. Cultivating EQ requires developing self-awareness, active listening skills, curiosity, emotional regulation, as well as an ability to accept constructive feedback and show genuine empathy. An introspection practice I like to do at night is to replay the day backwards in my head and relive the day’s interactions through the other person’s eyes. This was advice I picked up for lucid dreaming, but it’s definitely helped me cultivate more emotional intelligence. — CD

Reddit is often a more reliable source of information than Google, especially for product reviews, restaurant recommendations, and how-to instructions. Unfortunately, Reddit’s native search engine is clunky and leaves a lot to be desired. I started using Giga, a site that returns relevant Reddit posts and summarizes them. I used it to find out how to cook chicken breasts so they don’t become tough and dry. — MF

For wrapping presents, I have found this simple gadget helpful. The Elf Gift Wrap Cutter is a short plastic tube that slides onto a standard roll of wrapping paper. I slide it up and it cuts the paper precisely square. Trivial, but simple, cheap, and forever. It lives with the wrapping paper. — KK

This three-minute video explains how those annoying “I’m not a robot” reCAPTCHA checkbox tests work. It turns out the checkbox itself is not the test at all, but rather it’s your mouse movements and browsing history that give away your humanity. The video is full of surprising facts about these “completely automated public Turing tests.” For instance, I learned spammers pay workers as as little as $1.00 per thousand tests to solve CAPTCHAs. — MF

We still have an outdoor clothes line, in addition to our dryer, to take advantage of solar energy. Over time a rope line will sag. This clever, inexpensive device, a $7 Clothesline Tightener, will cinch your line taut with a hard pull. It’s affixed to the end of the line. It won’t work with thin wire lines, only rope lines. – KK

I have two lunar calendars and I use them both. MOON is on Apple only ($11/yr) and I love it because it displays a huge moon widget on my home screen. The moon is animated to depict its illumination percentage and the stars will play music for you if you shake and tap them. It’s fun. My other app and the one I can wholeheartedly recommend because it’s free is My Moon Phase (available on iOS and Android). It’s one of few apps I have set to allow notifications and it provides more specific information about the moon like its distance from Earth and moonrise and moonset times. Sadly, no widget. — CD

View a Sunset at virtually any time of the day with Sunset.funwebsite.fun. This website will connect you to livestreams and webcams all over the world and tell you how many minutes have passed before or after sunset. It’s fascinating to look at this in the morning as my day is just beginning. I feel connected to far-off parts of the Earth. — CD 

The best book about tools – the tools you can buy today – is this new illustrated tome by Theo Gray, called Tools: A visual exploration. It is comprehensive (covers hundreds of examples from hand tools to elaborate power tools), detailed, very graphic (clear photos for each thing), and witty. Most importantly, this overview of all tools is based on Gray’s 40 years of using all these tools to make an astonishing range of things. As a maker, I found his expertise and recommendations essential. I also read the book as a catalog of possibilities; each tool unfamiliar to me opened up possible new directions of making. Gray also made a free website with pictures of the tools without any text. — KK

The Viewtainer is a cleverly designed storage container made from clear plastic. It lets you easily see the contents, while the squeeze-to-open top makes accessing the contents convenient. Just apply light pressure to the tube's sides and the slitted rubber top pops open, allowing you to easily insert or remove small items. It's perfect for organizing craft supplies, dog treats, and hardware like screws or nails. I use one to collect sea glass when we go to the beach. — MF

My husband bought this XULRKOS Splatter Screen ($9) for our frying pan, and it’s one of those indispensable multi-purpose kitchen tools that I didn’t know I needed.  It doesn’t prevent all splatters, but it significantly reduces excess grease on our stove and counters. You can also use it as a sieve or cooling rack. — CD

Nicolas, a designer at GitHub, maintains a list of quotations that he shares on his personal website. Most of them are new to me, and many are inspiring or provocative. Examples:

• “Be careful what you cast out — the vacancy is quickly filled”  — Austin Osman Spare

• “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire

• “There is no product or service more ecological, sustainable and recyclable as the one we do not use.” — Philippe Bihouix

• Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. — André Gide

– MF