An ecosphere is a self-contained world that contains plants and animals inside a completely sealed container. They can live for decades, without ever opening it up to feed or clean. The algae make food for the tiny brine shrimp, and the shrimp make carbon dioxide for the plants. Together they make a circle of life. I’ve had ecospheres on my desk for 30 years. Until I inadvertently killed it, one of mine lasted 25 years. I’ve bought small ecospheres and “repotted” them in larger vessels, but even small ones can last many years. A good deal for a small ecosphere is Shrimp Bubble, which comes with an internal magnet to clean the inside glass without opening it. — KK

Large political currents are moving China and the US towards a new cold war. I found the best remedy to temper this emerging hysteria is a new Netflix documentary series on the first Cold War. In 9 parts, each episode of Turning Point goes into great detail about the origins of the mutual fears, the mad way demagogues fanned them and played them out, and the huge repercussions the conflict had on the entire world and everyday lives. In this story the nukes were the “turning point.” Along they way the series hints at the nature of a China vs US cold war, where AI is the turning point, and the lessons we might take from this recent history. — KK

The Curricula is a website to help you learn “anything” by generating a guide and resources. I’ve been curious about the Alexander Technique, a method of improving the mind-body connection, and what I was given was a summarized learning path and links to books, articles, and videos for each of the core concepts. All the content is generated by AI, so it is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate, but it did a decent job of providing a starting point for my research, and I appreciate the creator’s intent. — CD 

After too many disappointing dining experiences, I've given up on using Yelp as a reliable restaurant guide. My new favorite resource is The Infatuation, which has curated bar and restaurant lists for many major cities. Lists for Los Angeles (where I live) include “The Best Coffee Shops In LA For Getting Work Done,” and “The Best Armenian Restaurants In Los Angeles.” — MF

• “Today is the worst AI will ever be.” — Alex Irpan

• “There are two kinds of people in the world… and who is not both of them?” — James Richardson

• “To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.”  — Stephen Hawking

• “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”  — Stephen King

• “There is no failure in sports.”  — Giannis Antetokounmpo

• “Scarcity is the one thing you can never have enough of.” — Marc Randolph

• “I wouldn’t have seen it, if I didn’t believe it.” — Marshall McLuhan

• “No man was ever wise by chance.” — Seneca

• "What people say about you behind your back is none of your business." — John Maeda

• “The most selfish act of all is kindness, because its reward is so much greater than the investment.” — Tom Peters

• "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." — Carl Jung

That is another set of quotes I greatly appreciate, and find useful to remember. — KK

If you’re ever feeling rejected, anxious, or insecure, at AreTheyMadAtMe.com you’ll find a wall of comforting messages from anonymous posters to remind you that you are not alone. Uncertainty can make me feel lonely or disconnected from other people, and this is a good reminder to not make assumptions about how others might be feeling toward me and practice some self-soothing. — CD 

Ben Braddock offers a devilishly clever tactic for Chipotle aficionados who want to maximize their protein bang-for-buck: “l always wait until after the employee puts the first scoop of chicken on my burrito to ask for double chicken, so the size of the first scoop isn't compromised by the knowledge I'm getting a second scoop and now the employee has shown their hand in terms of their default scoop size, so they can't skimp with my second scoop.” — MF

I’ve been a serious photographer for more than 50 years. The best camera I have ever owned is a new iPhone 15 Pro. It is now the only camera I carry. But I had to learn and unlearn some tricks to use a phone as a camera well. Scott Kelby, a veteran pro photographer, made a fabulously helpful 45-minute video explaining his favorite 20 tips on using an iPhone for a serious travel camera. Most of the tips in Kelby’s Using Your iPhone for Travel Photography tutorial were new to me, and right on. Would probably be useful for any current smartphone. — KK

Here’s a list of 43 things that don’t work, according to the author of the Dynomight newsletter. I don’t agree with all of them, but I’m on board with item number 12: Explaining board games (you should just start playing and answer questions as they come up), and 17: Arguing with people (“Words do not exist that will make people [change their minds] aside from a few weirdos who’ve intentionally cultivated the habit.”) — MF

BookPecker.com summarizes popular books into 5 key points. Five bullet points may not be enough information to learn and absorb new concepts, but just enough to pique your interest and help you decide if you want to read a particular book or not. Here’s an example of a book I’ve been wanting to read: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Based on the summary, I decided to forgo reading the book and instead try to do some online research on each of the masculine archetypes. Currently there are 14,509 books summarized in 5 bullet points. — CD 

This search engine Similar Song Finder is helpful for creating Spotify playlists based on your favorite song of the moment. I tested it out with songs of different genres and it’s great for creating “mood” playlists. — CD 

The Red Hot Ball Experiments Instagram channel has nearly 500,000 subscribers. Each video begins with a close-up of an item, such as a kiwi fruit, a bar of soap, a deck of playing cards, or a glass jar of honey. Then, a red-hot iron ball is placed on the object. We then get to see what happens to the object for the next minute or so. Must-see TV! — MF

I write poetry and I’ve never found a writing app that is conducive to writing poems until now. Poke!Book is nearly perfect: it's free, and it stores everything locally in your browser. Having two notepads side by side—one for notes and the other for my working poem—is incredibly helpful. The lined notepad expands infinitely, and makes it painless to delete and change line breaks. And best of all, it doesn't auto-capitalize when you start a new line. — CD 

I’ve run out of worthy new science fiction movies to stream, so I was happy to find the old episodes of Firefly streaming on Hulu, or downloadable on Amazon or Apple+. I missed them when they originally aired in 2002, so it’s a joy to watch them now. Firefly is an inventive “space western” set 500 years in the future, a science fiction drama with engaging characters – a ragtag collection of misfits – and what a science fiction series should be. I rapidly binged all 14 episodes (plus the Serenity movie), and can see why its fans are so ardent. — KK

PowerOutage.us is a near real-time map of power outages in the United States. States are color-coded based on the number of customers experiencing power loss. By clicking on individual states, you can access more detailed information about the specific outages in the counties of that state. — MF

It’s been a long while since I found anything to improve my web browsing habits, but I have quickly incorporated One Tab into my daily routine. Like many folks, I tend to keep a million tabs open. One Tab, a free Chrome extension, will collapse all my open browser tabs into one tab, which will open into a list of “open” pages. I find it much easier to navigate this list than the row of tabs, and it can instantly restore any tab. So I have all the open tabs I want, without having a bunch of open tabs. Extremely clean and simple. – KK

Writer and entrepreneur Ryan Holiday has had a varied career, from Hollywood agent assistant to marketing director for American Apparel. He’s put together a list of 37 pieces of hard-fought career advice that’s useful for anyone who works. Examples:

• Find what nobody else wants to do and do it. Find inefficiency and waste and redundancies. Identify leaks and patches to free up resources for new areas. Produce more than everyone else and give your ideas away.

• Always say less than necessary. Saying less than necessary, not interjecting at every chance we get — this is actually the mark not just of a self-disciplined person, but also a very smart and wise person.

• Your creative output, your personal relationships, and your social life—balancing all three is impossible. You can excel in two if you say no to one. If you can’t, you’ll have none.

• When people compete, somebody loses. So go where you’re the only one. Do what only you can do. Run a race with yourself.

— MF

If you’re like me and would like to know more about fonts than just serif and san-serif, here is a cool guide to check out: The Logo Company’s Guide to Typography and Fonts. It breaks down the entire anatomy of fonts. — CD 

If you train yourself to pay attention to your surroundings you should be able to immediately point north without too much thinking. The next-level awareness is to point to the center of the galaxy at any time. Because the earth rotates during the day and orbits during the year, this direction changes constantly. You’ll need an app to help you. Galactic Compass is a free iPhone app that does only one thing: points toward the center of the galaxy. — KK

The GOES Image Viewer hosts the most up-to-date real time images of Earth available to the public. You can view and download satellite images that capture the entire visible disk of Earth and are updated every 10 to 15 minutes. I don’t know much about meteorology or geoscience, but I am an Earth lover, and it’s fascinating to be able to visualize weather patterns on a global scale. — CD