Objects from the future/Nature identifier/Beefy power bank

Recomendo - issue #465

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Jun 01, 2025

Best power bank for pro users

With 140W of power, the Anker 737 PowerCore 24K power bank is beefy enough to juice up a laptop. It's hefty — 1.3 pounds and the size of a soda can — but that's the tradeoff for this much power. The color display shows you how long it will take to charge your device. If you need serious portable charging, this is worth the investment. It comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable designed to handle the high wattage. — MF

Imaginal Future Tool

Objects from the Future is a digital prompt generator that helps you imagine physical objects from potential future worlds. You are given five cards, each representing a different societal outcome, timeframe, object, industry, and human need to be satisfied. These prompts then become doorways to the imaginal. I spent some time envisioning what family rituals might exist 100 years from now, when a large-scale event has led society down an unpredicted path and what is needed most is “comfort” in uncertain times. I didn’t get a clear picture in my mind, but I sensed that even 100 years from now, the greatest source of comfort for me would be rooted in the natural world, not digital. — CD

Polyglot sparks global joy

Language enthusiast Yuji Beleza travels the world recording his encounters with strangers. He speaks five languages fluently — Japanese, English, Russian, German, and Turkish — and knows enough to hold basic conversations in dozens more. When people tell him where they're from, he immediately switches to their native language. Watch as their expressions transform from coolness and suspicion to warmth and trust. My friend Irwin Miller shared Beleza's Instagram channel with me, and it instantly lifted my spirits. — MF

Nature identifier

The best mobile app for identifying living species is iNaturalist. It is free, fast, and can identify most plants, animals and many fungi. Load it onto your phone, use it to snap a picture, and then its AI will ID it. To date, it can identify 500,000 species. You can then share your observation with iNaturalist’s extensive community of enthusiasts who can confirm, refine, and expand upon what you found. Because you can opt to allow the location of your observation, the app is also contributing to science. (The current app is a newly rewritten version that replaces both iNaturalist Classic and kid-version Seek.) Twenty five years ago I co-founded a non-profit to catalog all the species on the planet and this is the technology that we dreamed about. — KK

Wonder Tools

I have a rotating door of newsletters in my inbox, and I’m often subscribing and unsubscribing as I outgrow them, but Wonder Tools is one that I continue to read weekly. Jeremy Kaplan generously offers in-depth research about the most useful tools on the Internet and shares his insights for free. I always learn something new and discover websites and apps that make my computer life easier. A good example is his recent issue: Deep Research with AI: 9 Ways to Get Started. — CD

Rubber block printing

Did you ever make a linoleum wood-block print in school? I did, and cutting linoleum was a pain. It took a lot of energy and effort to even make a small design. Recently I returned to making woodcut prints and hand-carved stamps because I discovered the secret: instead of cutting either wood or linoleum, I carve on a sheet of firm rubber, which cuts like butter. Speedball, the legendary company making carving tools, produces their own Speedy-Carve Blocks which have the consistency of a pencil eraser. Many other generic manufacturers in China offer this soft carving sheets, too. Now, making a block print is quick and enjoyable. — KK

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