5 Recommendations

  1. NYT Sunday Routine feature I love this weekly feature in the New York Times. It spotlights a random New Yorker and lets them walk the reader through a typical Sunday. I like that it illuminates the lives of everyday people and I have also found that I enjoy seeing both what people’s the inside of peoples’ homes look like and how they spend their time. It is behind the NYT paywall.

  2. Short documentary The Evolving Mind of Neil Peart This video showed up in my feed because I love Rush. It was published in early September 2025 but is evergreen if you are a Rush fan or interested in their amazing drummer. This short documentary takes a look at some the philosophical ideas that are often associated with Peart, especially his early song writing.

  3. Ghost Rider book Thinking of The Professor, I immediately thought to recommend his wonderful book Ghost Rider. Peart’s wife and only daughter both died in the same year and in order to cope with the loss he jumped on his BMW motorcycle and drove all over North America, from Alaska to Mexico and all points in between, both east and west. It is part travelogue and part meditation on death. Five out of five stars!

  4. Book Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking This is a recommendation for those in education. For years, the dominant view in teaching is that we should be doing ‘higher level thinking.’ You know, ‘synthesis’ and ‘analysis’ and ‘evaluation.’ Well, yeah, those are practices we want our students to be familiar with and to be comfortable engaging in. However, sometimes students don’t have the foundational knowledge to engage in these ‘higher’ levels of thinking. You can’t connect the dots, if there aren’t any dots. This short book is a breath of fresh air in its advocation for a curriculum that is deeply rooted in factual knowledge.

  5. Peps McCrea’s teaching email newsletter Mr. McCrea is a British educator with a great, research-based newsletter for teachers. The emails are short and sweet with links to the research.

5 Recommendations

  1. Napkin AI This is AI software that helps make interesting and creative graphics based on your inputs. I have found it simple to use and helpful from time to time when turning boring lists into something more interesting in the context of teaching (handouts and slide decks).
  2. Cool online thesaurus Came across this recently in one of the newsletters I read. Immediately bookmarked it. I imagine it would prove useful for writers, teachers, and students.
  3. Window Swap Website Every once in while I dial this up on my laptop while I am working on my desktop. I find it equal parts relaxing and fascinating. Some views are better than others, but it is easy to switch things up.
  4. Discussion on YouTube This is a great discussion about the decline of reading and its deleterious impacts on society. Worth a listen.
  5. Day One journal app Productivity and lifestyle gurus usually advise journaling as a positive habit. Science also backs up the habit. I have been a keeper of a journal off and on for most of my life because I like keeping a record of my life. I think it is the same inclination that leads me to find history interesting and to want to track my personal (QS) data. This is a digital journaling app that I love. Two cool features I dig include the ‘on this day’ feature, which allows you to see what you were doing on a particular day in the past, and the geolocation feature, that tracks where you were when you made the post. It works great on a phone or a desktop.

5 Recommendations

  1. Hulry email newsletter. I discovered this email newsletter last year and it rarely fails to share something I find interesting. It is also relatively short and doesn’t feel like a chore to read. Good stuff.
  2. Timestripe software This was an experiment that has stuck. Like many, I’m always trying to utilize the task manager that best fits my quirks and needs. While I still use Notion for every day tasks (like taking vitamins and meditating), this is great for one off tasks or work tasks. I keep it a link pinned in my browser and am in and out of the app daily. The mobile app is great, too.
  3. 12.30.24 Austin Goose show (via Bandcamp) This was my third Goose show and still my favorite of the four I’ve now seen. I attended with my wife and we both loved it. Top shelf jams (I know, that’s very subjective) in Draconian Meter Maid, Arrow, Arcadia, and Red Bird. My wife’s favorite tune of the night was Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. The encore was a beautiful, mellow, cherry on top.
  4. Greenlight app We have started using this app to deliver our daughter’s allowance onto a debit card that she can use and that we have ultimate control of. It also allows us to set up and track chore completion. Very smooth so far. Bonus points for letting kids pick their own images to go on their cards. Highly recommend for the purpose it serves.
  5. Scott Lake camping in Central Oregon: I go backpacking every summer with old friends. This year, due to some injuries, we car camped. We wound up at a beautiful campground in Central Oregon at Scott Lake, which is north of the Three Sisters and west of the town of Sisters. The walk ins to the camp spots were long, but worth it. Our camp was very large, and right near the lake. I imagine at the wrong time of year, the mosquitoes would be bad, though we lucked out. Definitely great for larger groups. Here are a few pics.

5 Recommendations

I always enjoy seeing what other folks find interesting. In the spirit of sharing, this is the first of many short posts sharing 5 things I enjoyed or am continuing to enjoy.

  1. Email newsletter Dense Discovery Lots of gold every week in your inbox.
  2. Recent article from GQ (?!) about my latest musical obsession, Goose.
  3. Readwise app This is the app I use to make the quote cards you see in my blog posts about ideas from my reading. I use it to scan and save text from what I am reading and it then moves all my saved highlights into a database in Notion. Their new AI feature means I can have chats with all my saved passages. Pretty cool.
  4. Marginal Revolution blog Run by economist Tyler Cowen, this website is a repository of ideas about the economy, the world, and culture. Cowen is often contrarian, so his takes are usually thought-provoking and challenge my normal schema.
  5. Daily Dad email newsletter is run by Ryan Holiday, one of my favorite authors. As a father, these daily reminders are solid gold.