myCharge RazorXtreme/News Items/Open Borders
Recomendo: issue no. 173
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Heavy duty power brick
The myCharge RazorXtreme ($100) is a portable charger with two USB A ports and a USB C port that charge small devices as well as laptops (20V, 45W). It’s bigger and heavier than typical portable chargers (almost 9-inches long and 1.3 lbs) but it keeps my family’s numerous electronics juiced all weekend when we are away from an AC power source. — MF
My best news source
I get a bunch of email newsletters but the only one I pay for is News Items. Every week day the one-person wizard behind News Items, John Ellis, delivers a dozen brief paragraphs of global news summarized from 75 uncommon sources, including many behind pay walls. New Items is much more global, more high level, and much more succinct (two pages at most) than any newspaper in the world. It’s $90 per year, and there is a free abbreviated version. — KK
The economic benefits of mobility
Open Borders is a comic book written by an economist. It’s also a comic book about one of the most seriously radical ideas you may ever hear: that all countries, including the US, should have open borders, allowing anyone on the planet to live anywhere they want if they obey local laws. The book carefully runs through the reasons why this is good economically for countries like the US, counters all the obvious and non-obvious objections one by one, and then goes through compromises and partial solutions for those objections. All while keeping it light, fast, easy, fun, and crystal clear. While there are moral arguments, these are mostly economic arguments why open borders are a winner for all involved, especially the US. I am already giving copies of this book away. — KK
Instructions on how to clean your laptop
After ruining a keyboard years ago, I took a long break from cleaning my laptop. Turns out I just needed someone to instruct me, like this article, on “How to Properly Clean Your Gross Laptop.” I had all the supplies at home: microfiber wipes, compressed air, cotton swabs and 90%-100% isopropyl alcohol. — CD
The exciting world of procedural generation
I recently came across a subreddit called r/proceduralgeneration. Here, you’ll see examples of amazing artwork, animated lifeforms, game environments, fantasy maps, and more, all created from algorithms (as opposed to being created directly by a human). If you doubt that software can produce beautiful and original art that surprises even the people who write the programs, this subreddit might change your mind. — MF
Mother/child relationship reading list
I was happy to find in last week’s Anne Friedman Weekly a crowdsourced syllabus of media depicting mother/child relationships. Which is a favorite subject of mine to explore, because the more I understand my personal relationship with my mother, the better I understand myself. Some of the books were already on my wishlist so I just went ahead and bought them, but now I have a whole new list of things to watch and read. You can check out all the other recommendations that didn’t make the syllabus here in a public google sheet. — CD