{"id":34087,"date":"2019-08-28T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=34087"},"modified":"2019-08-05T14:47:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T21:47:29","slug":"whats-in-my-bag-aj-jacobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/whats-in-my-bag-aj-jacobs\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in my bag? \u2014 AJ Jacobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0What\u2019s in my bag?\u00a0a week early in your inbox<\/em><\/p>\n

A.J. Jacobs<\/a>\u00a0is a writer, lecturer and human guinea pig. He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books, including \u201cThe Year of Living Biblically<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Know-It-All<\/a>.\u201d He is a contributor to NPR, the New York Times and Esquire magazine and is a frequent TED speaker. His most recent book is \u201cThanks a Thousand<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Life Changing Questions<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0($24)<\/strong>
\nMy friend \u2014 the social scientist and mathematician Spencer Greenberg \u2014 developed a deck of cards he calls \u201cLife Changing Questions.\u201d And they are just what they sound like. Each card has a Big Question printed on it (e.g. \u201cWhat have you changed your mind about?\u201d or \u201cWhat would you do if you had one week to live?\u201d) Spencer\u2019s research shows these questions are the ones his test subjects find most valuable in reassessing their lives. I like to break the cards out at dinner with my family and use them as conversation prompts. They are much better than arguing over screen time.<\/p>\n

ReMarkable<\/strong><\/a> ($499)<\/strong>
\nThis is an unusual tablet. Its main purpose is to allow you to take handwritten notes on the impressively paper-like interface. It\u2019s too expensive for what it is, but I still recommend it because it\u2019s helped reduce my habit of having dozens of spiral-bound notebooks strewn about my office. It makes it much easier to find notes I\u2019ve taken in meetings or while brainstorming. Caveat: One of the breakthrough technologies with ReMarkable is that it has a machine-learning handwriting recognizer that can turn your handwriting into digital text. Mine stopped working after a week and hours with tech support hasn\u2019t fixed it. But I still like the gadget.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s Earmuffs<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0($10)<\/strong>
\nA few years ago, I bought a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Then I lost them and bought another pair. Which I then broke and bought another. At which point I decided I had to give them up or go broke. (They cost about $300). Instead, I\u2019ve switched to Walker\u2019s noise-reducing earmuffs which cost a glorious $9.87. They muffle sound remarkably well. Perhaps not quite as well as Bose, but good enough for me to wear them in airplanes, subways, walking down the street. I often wear my iPhone earbuds with the Walker\u2019s earmuffs over them, and the sound is fantastic. Plus, the Walker\u2019s black version doesn\u2019t look as dorky as some other earmuffs I\u2019ve tried, which look like equipment you wear on the tarmac at a major airport.<\/p>\n

iNaturalist<\/strong><\/a>
\nOkay, this isn\u2019t a physical tool. It\u2019s an app. But I love it so much I want to spread the word. It\u2019s for anyone who is curious about flora and fauna. The way it works is: You take a photo of the animal or plant, and upload it. The algorithm tries to identify the animal or plant. Better yet, the thousands of others in the iNaturalist community weigh in with confirmations and comments. I\u2019m particularly proud of my son\u2019s brown anole lizard photo from Florida, as you can see the little guy\u2019s bright orange neck.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s in my bag? issue #12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2303],"tags":[1553],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34089,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087\/revisions\/34089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}