Stillgram / Echoes of Genius / Magnified Sand
Recomendo - issue #513
Erase the crowds from your travel photos
Stillgram is an iPhone camera app that uses on-device AI to automatically remove other people from your shots. Point it at the Trevi Fountain or Shibuya Crossing, snap, and the app cleans out the crowd — leaving just the landmark. The fun part is Pro mode ($14.99), which lets you tap to choose who stays in the frame, so you can erase everyone except your kid in front of the Eiffel Tower. For an Android equivalent, try ClearCrowds. — MF
Solar yard lights
Solar-powered outdoor lights were a great idea, but sadly most were kind of crappy. They would stop working after a few years. But in recent times they’ve gotten much better. Some of my new ones at our gate have been performing fabulously for years. No wires means you can put them anywhere. The kind I’ve settled on are ones like these Aootek Motion Sensing LED fence-mounted units that stay dim until they detect motion and then brighten up, preserving power. They come in a set of 6 ($22). They are quite bright; even one can make a big difference in the dark. – KK
Sand under the microscope
Magnifiedsand.com is one human’s labor of love: a collection of sand samples from around the world, magnified and photographed. I can’t explain my instinctual need to collect shells, feathers, and rocks, but that same part of me gets lost in these images. There’s something mesmerizing about zooming in enough to see the diverse assortment of crushed quartz, tiny fossils, and shell fragments. Just a small, free, beautifully nerdy corner of the internet.
— CD
Bright, dimmable floor lamps
To brighten up our dim living room, I bought two of these 69” Sunmory LED floor lamps. The large disc-shaped LED head produces a lot of light without the harsh glare of a bulb-style torchiere. Using the remote, I can adjust both brightness and color temperature — cool and bright during the day, warm and low in the evening. The head tilts and rotates, so I can aim the light wherever I need it. They feel solidly built for the price, with a heavy base that doesn’t tip. Two now light the room beautifully. — MF
Start with nothing
A short blog post with stupidly simple advice that actually works: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work. Don’t try to organize the chaos. Start the day with nothing—an empty surface, all browser tabs closed, a blank page—then pull out the one thing you need. It’s surprising how easily focus follows. — CD
Wisdom quotes
I find power in aphorisms, proverbs, and witty quotes. So does David Wells, who spent years reading widely and collecting his favorite passages into an enormous self-published book, Echoes of Genius: Enduring Wisdom from Great Minds. What I like about his collection is the refreshing variety of sources, modern and ancient, from all occupations, pop and scholarly. The other cool thing is that the quotes are arranged in a calendar format, and grouped by subject, so you get two pages of quotes about one virtue for each day of the year. It’s kind of like a meditation. Here are a few of my favorites from the book:
Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. — James Clear
You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy. — Garth Brooks
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. — Linus Pauling
If you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself. — Paul Graham
Where your fear is, there is your task. — Carl Jung
Focus on things that are small enough to change, but big enough to matter. — Kat Cole
History is a vast early warning system. — Norman Cousins
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. — Albert Schweitzer
Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. — Martin Luther King
A problem well stated is a problem half-solved. — Charles F. Kettering
Things that have never happened before happen all the time. — Morgan Housel
There are of course thousands more like this in the book. – KK
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Well, i'm a big fan of collections of quotes, aphorisms, what have you. And often apprecaite the ones shared in Recomendo (so thanks for those). And i have a massive commonplace book that only grows and grows with what i add to it yearly, even weekly. But we also live in an age of incredible misquotation. And Wells' book (from what i can tell from the Amazon preview doesn't appear to include sources (at least they do not appear as footnotes and there's no indication from the contents page of a reference section). I appreciate the disclaimer that assures "best effort" but I have learned not to use nor trust quotes without sources. When i like a quote I often find that there is as much (often more) meaning to be found in its context than in the privileged fragment. I made my first "Book of Days" of quotes in 1985 before i developed the habit of proper citation and have spent years amending my entries. I find we often are attracted to quotes that confirm our biases only to find those biases well-challenged when we learn more about the context of the quote. I'll be giving this book a pass for now. (Also, and this is quibbly for sure, i noticed a quote from Jordan Peterson, an odious former neighbour, if you can believe that, and seeing his words always leaves me with a bad taste).