I bought this extension cord reel with 4 outlets last November, and it has come in handy many times since then. It has a 25-foot power cord which rolls neatly onto a spool. Amazon has it on sale today at a good discount. Read the rest
10 years ago we decluttered our garage and Carla bought several Gorilla Rack shelving units from Amazon. They are awesome. I've assembled shelving units before, and they required either nuts and bolts or little brackets, but the Gorilla Rack units have parts that fit together without extra hardware. I built the first shelving unit in about 30 minutes. The second one took me 15 minutes, and the third one was done in 10 minutes. The pieces fit together without any fussing and the unit is free of sharp edges. It's very sturdy, too. Read the rest
In December I bought a pair of TaoTronics active noise cancelling bluetooth headphones for my two daughters to use on an 18-hour plane trip. They said they were excellent, and they also used them in the hotel to watch videos, play music, and play games. I tried them myself and was pleasantly surprised by how well they worked. They use them every day, and now that we are all cooped up together in the house, they use them all day.
You can use L5G769UL to get them at a good discount on Amazon. Read the rest
If you want to be able to open and close your garage door from your phone, and receive alerts on your phone when the door is opened or closed, this Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener is a good choice. It's about the size of a bar of soap, and attaches to terminals on your garage door motor. (It requires wi-fi reception in your garage, obviously!)
I paid full price for it in November but Amazon currently has it on double discount: a checkbox coupon on the product page and a promo code: ZLUINGM5. Read the rest
Everyone in my family has stolen my no-show socks. They have little rubber stripes to keep the socks from slipping off your heel. Interestingly, the photo on the Amazon page shows the socks being work inside out. If you wear them as shown, the rubber stripes will come in contact with your shoe and pull the sock off your heel. I bought six more pair at a great price using discount code 3M4HRN68. Read the rest
I'd been storing my comics in my parents' attic for the last 40+ years and I just got them all and have been putting them into new plastic bags. I enjoyed Regie Simmons' video on how to bag and board comics, and one thing he recommended was using blue painter's tape instead of scotch tape to seal bags, because it leaves no residue. I ordered some and have been using it to seal the bags. Much better than scotch tape! The scotch tape on my old bags is sticky and gross, and I have to be careful not to get the adhesive on the comics. Amazon has a good price on it right now. Read the rest
I bought this Inateck Laptop Sleeve Case for my 13-inch MacBook Pro. I wanted something well-padded, with a handle and a separate pouch to store the charger. This one fit the bill. It's not much bigger than than the laptop, so it doesn't take up a lot of room in a suitcase. Read the rest
Last week I posted about a Anker PowerCore Slim 10000 portable charger, which can be recharged with a USB-C or Micro USB cable. I included a promo code but some people had trouble with it. Here's a similar Anker charger, the Anker PowerCore Lite 10000mAh,* which has a coupon on the Amazon product page for a great discount. Note that the power input it USB-C only.
(This link takes you to a page with a button that lets you buy the charger on Amazon.) Read the rest
My car tire had a dry-wall screw in it. I bought a cheap tire plug repair kit at the local Pep Boys for about $12. It was hard to use because I had to apply a lot of force to the plastic handle and it was painful. A month later I found another screw in my tire. I left the screw in until I ordered a heavy duty tire plug repair kit on Amazon. The all metal handles were a pleasure to use. Since then I've used it a couple more times and the tires have not started leaking again Read the rest
Use promo code K2EVWP2F to get this Poweradd Surge Protector USB Power Strip with 3 USB Charging Ports for a good discount on Amazon. It's got a five-foot cord, a surge protector, and safeguards to protect against overheating and overcharging. I just bought a couple. Read the rest
My kids draw every day. I try to join them for an hour or so on the weekends. We store our pencils in these Lihit Lab Teffa "book style" pencil cases (Currently on Amazon). Mine contains my pencils, charcoals, lead holder, erasers, snap-blade knife, and reading glasses. It's not large, but it's designed with "pages" to hold your stuff efficiently. Pens and pencils fit behind straps, and smaller stuff can be stashed in the mesh pouches.
My sketches:
I bought this solar powered LED illuminated street address sign earlier this month and am really happy with it. The light is is bright and makes it easy for people to find our house. It comes with several sheets of adhesive numbers that you stick onto a white plastic panel. It also comes with mounting screws, but I attached it to the side of a metal mailbox so I used outdoor mounting tape instead. My address has five numbers and I had no problem fitting them on the panel, using the included cardboard placement template.
I paid full price for it, but the seller has a code 5UZYEDUV to let you buy it at a good discount. Read the rest
I have a similar Aukey charger and it's great for travel or in a room where you want to charge a lot of devices at once. It has 2 AC Outlets and 4 USB ports. I just bought this model for my bedside table. Use code 8US35ZN2 at Amazon to get it for a discount. Read the rest
My red Swingline stapler has been sparking joy since 2008, but if you don't care about the color, this black version is just on Amazon. At that price, you won't be tempted to set your building on fire should someone take it from you. Read the rest
I’ve tried many ways to extend Wi-Fi through my house. Powerline networking, which creates networks through electrical wiring, works the best for me. TP-Link has this kit with 2 units. One unit plugs into your wall outlet and router. The other unit can be plugged into any wall outlet in your house to provide Wi-Fi in that area. I've had great results with it.
I have an earlier version of this Anker PowerCore charger and it's the one I use most frequently. It's small and light and will charge my Nintendo Switch as well as my iPhone. Amazon has it on sale right now. Read the rest
Douglas Rushkoff is one my oldest and dearest friends. He's also one of the sharpest media theorists and cultural critics I know. It's always a thrill to have a conversation with him because he makes me question my opinions and I alway end up with a changed brain. So it was great fun to have him on the Cool Tool podcast.
Douglas is named one of the "world's ten most influential intellectuals by MIT. He's an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Team Human, based on his podcast, as well as the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc., and Media Virus. He also made the PBS FRONTLINE documentaries, Generation Like, The Persuaders, and The Merchants of Cool. He's a professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at Queens College, a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D., and Aleister & Adolf are all being developed for the screen. You can find him on Twitter @rushkoff and Youtube.
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Show notes:
Written language Written language is definitely a tool. It's a medium. It's an environment. There's all these ways to think about it, but I love thinking about words as a tool. Because particularly, when I'm mad about something or I feel like there's something that people don't get, once I can put words around it, once I can articulate what's happening, what people are feeling, or the dysfunction, or the paradox, I feel like it empowers me and so many other people to then go do something about it. Read the rest
