Tips for philanthropy / Pixel Thoughts app / Packable travel bag

Recomendo - issue #525

Tips for philanthropy

For some people “Giving Money Away Can Be Harder Than Making It” so Roy Bahat, someone whose lifelong habit has been to give money away, has written up some tips in this essay. He follows part one with a second set of more practical suggestions aimed at the thousands of young people about to become millionaires in the AI IPO boom: How to Actually Give Away Your AI Money. Our family has had a habit of philanthropy even when we had very little. I agree with Bahat that giving away well is challenging, and also incredibly rewarding. — KK

One-minute worry release

Pixel Thoughts started as a 60-second meditation site where you type whatever you’re stressed about into a star and watch it drift off into space, and now the same idea is available as a phone app on iOS and Android. My favorite new feature is the custom meditation option, where you pick the length and music, and it reads your specific worry and builds a short reframe around that exact thought instead of a generic one. It’s free, and you can just download it and try it out, no account needed. — CD

Packable travel bag

I keep an Infinity packable travel bag in my suitcase for trips where I know I’ll be bringing more home than I left with. It weighs just 260g and folds down to almost nothing, so I pack it empty and only unfold it when I need the extra space. It slips over a suitcase handle for rolling through the airport, has interior pockets for small stuff, and stands up on its own so it’s easy to load. — MF

Jurassic Park control room nostalgia

Jurassic Park Computers in Excruciating Detail is pure movie-nerd joy and behind-the-scenes magic for JP fans. The author goes through every single computer in the film, and I learned that today’s equivalent of about $4,000,000 in hardware and software was loaned for the production, and that everything was functional because, even then, audiences were too sophisticated about computers to fake it. This movie came out when I was 10 years old. I played the video game, I watched the movies on loop, and at one point I even had a Jurassic Park–themed birthday party (at age 27), so this kind of obsessive breakdown literally induces glee. R.I.P. Sam Neill. — CD

Master explainer

If you have listened to podcasts in the past decade, or watch tutorials on YouTube, it would be hard to miss Hank Green, who is a prolific explainer. He is omnipresent in the explainosphere. I enjoy dipping into his latest YouTube solo channel, where, in his signature rapid-fire style he explains whatever interests him. His lessons are very clear, sensible, and often with a little bit of a skewed view. He’s probably one of the best explainers of complex things. — KK

Non-luxury fountain pen

I bought this inexpensive fountain pen from Asvine after reading Neal Stephenson’s essay on writing by hand, which makes the case that longhand recruits more of your brain — and that a fountain pen is far less tiring than a pencil or ballpoint because the nib skates on the ink instead of requiring pressure. He recommends buying cheap pens until you know what you like. This one writes beautifully, has a metal body, a knurled barrel, and satisfying weight. It comes with a converter for bottled ink. — MF

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