Handheld duster/GetYourGuide.com/Expert photo tip
Recomendo - issue #479
Handheld duster
The Wolfbox MF100 battery-powered air duster produces a stream of air more powerful than a can of pressurized air. I've been using it to blow debris out of keyboards, dust from windowsills, cobwebs out of corners, and dirt lodged in cracks in my backyard wooden stairs. I wear ear protection when using it on the highest setting. It comes with four nozzle attachments and a USB-C charging cable. — MF
Local guide clearinghouse
Finding a reliable local guide in a far away destination is not easy, but made a bit easier with GetYourGuide.com. This is a clearinghouse for local ebike tours, street food tours, museum tours, and city walking tours around the world. GetYourGuide does not run any of the tours; these are all staffed and run by local entrepreneurs so the quality will vary. But this site and app make hyper local guides easy to find, easy to schedule, and easy to pay. In my own experience, they are reliable and deliver what they promise. — KK
Expert photo tip
I usually put very little effort into taking photos, but this tip makes me want to snap more—especially of my Chocolate Lab. It makes him look extra handsome. — CD
Turn your phone upside down so the lens is on the bottom.
Set the camera to 2x zoom.
Step back from your subject.
This setup helps create more natural human proportions and reduces facial distortion.
Rock video memoir
Whether or not you like the music of U2, you should watch the video memoir of its lead singer Bono. The format of Bono: Stories of Surrender, streaming on Apple+, is peculiar. Like an autobiography, this is an auto-documentary, a documentary made by Bono about himself. It begins with spoken-word monologues by Bono, mixes in music, dips in and out of him telling his Irish family story on stage, personal confessions of his own journey, punctuated by lyrics of well-known songs to fill out his biography. It is a performance, but also a record, an oral history. It’s a film version of his mammoth book autobiography, Surrender, but I appreciated this cinematic novella for its innovative approach to a memoir. — KK
Truly random rabbit holes
This website generates random adjective–noun combinations and then pulls up corresponding Wikipedia and Google results. Some exist as entries, while others don’t because they’re too nonsensical. Either way, it feeds my curiosity and sparks new creativity. — CD
Stones are ancient books
Richard Sharpe Shaver (1907–1975) was a pulp science fiction writer, best known for his articles that ran in Amazing Stories in the 1940s about an evil race of humanoids living beneath the Earth’s surface. Shaver insisted the stories were non-fiction. Later in life, Shaver came to realize that the patterns in rocks were messages written by intelligent beings of antiquity, and he devoted the remainder of his life to sharing his discovery with his small cadre of admirers. Richard Sharpe Shaver: Some Stones Are Ancient Books is a book of Shaver’s “rokfogos” research, complete with photos and typewritten rock-book translations. It was published by a delightful small press called The Further Reading Library. — MF
THIS ISSUE IS SPONSORED BY INCOGNI
A shocking amount of your personal data is online — address, phone, even SSN. Incogni finds and removes it, even from obscure sites you point out. Real privacy experts do the work. It's the most thorough tool we’ve found. Get Incogni and clean up your data.
Recomendo Unclassified Ads work! Reach over 121,000 subscribers for just $200.
UNCLASSIFIEDS
Learn how to fly First Class for the price of Economy! Roame is the only tool that helps you find hidden first & business class flight deals for FREE. Search in real-time or set automated alerts.
Declutter your inbox! The Meco newsletter reader app lets you organize and read newsletters in a dedicated space. Connect Gmail/Outlook. Features offline reading, topic grouping, highlights, saved links, and custom themes. Available on iOS, Android, web. Free version with premium features.
Salon-quality hair dryer dries 5x faster than standard dryers while reducing frizz and heat damage. Quiet operation, lightweight design, and smart temperature control for healthier, shinier hair. Magnetic attachments included. Get yours today.
Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.
Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak.
Wolfbox also has a tire inflator for quick battery powered use. 60 seconds to inflate a standard car tire. The bundle together is just slightly more than the MF100 by itself.
I enjoyed Bono's story. I liked the way it was presented. A unique way of telling a story.
His father gave us some good advice: "if we had justice, we wouldn't need charity".