My favorite T-shirts

I’ve tried many different T-shirt brands, and I’ve finally found one that checks all the boxes — Pair of Thieves. Their shirts are soft, very thin, slightly stretchy, and breathable. I bought a 3-pack on Amazon, gave them a test run, then bought two more 3-packs. — MF

Design inspiration

Long before plastic, the Japanese developed innovative ways to package goods using materials at hand: straw, bamboo, leaves, vines, paper. This peculiarly named book How to Wrap Five Eggs ($25) is a stunning gallery of everyday examples of this traditional Japanese packing, which has long disappeared. Photographed with studio black and white in the 1960s, each object is exquisite in its clever design. This thick book with two hundred examples is one that I return to often. The beauty never gets old. If you are at all partial to product design, or any type of presentation, this is a classic research source, a motherlode of how to think different. — KK

25 Questions To Ask Yourself

This blog post, “How To Become Wiser,” offers a great list of questions for reflection, organized around three main purposes: Seeking Perspective, Examining Yourself, and Developing Compassion. Introspection is my favorite tool for cultivating self-awareness and emotional regulation, and you don’t need a therapist or coach to develop your own practice—just a good set of questions. I wish I could memorize all 25, but instead, I’ve bookmarked them for those times when I’m confused, stuck, or need a journaling prompt. Here are a few of my favorites:

• What do I need in order to see this situation from a wiser perspective?

• Is this choice helping me move closer to my values or further away from them?

• What assumptions am I making right now?

• What needs is this person trying to fulfill right now?

— CD

Best internet speed test

When I want to check the speed of my internet connection (or if I’m connected at all), I use Fast.com. It starts testing instantly with no ads, measuring download speeds (plus upload and latency if needed) on any device, globally. — MF

Offline church

This website is my favorite internet find this week. Offline.church can only be accessed on your mobile device, and you can only enter the church by switching to airplane mode. Inside, you’ll find a meditative space and music, and an opportunity to be with yourself offline. It reminds me of the pocket shrines I used to carry as a child and it feels like a digital room of silence, or one of those interdenominational prayer rooms found in airports. — CD

Digital artists to follow

Three digital artists that I follow on Instagram. Each of their work is hard to explain in words:

Andy Thomas creates weird biological-like abstract shapes which move and behave with life-like energy; it’s a brilliant fusion of high tech and nature.

Zach Lieberman produces programmatically generated patterns, rich in color and light, that are animated with patterns of motion as well.

Adam Hale manufactures strange shifts in perspective, playfully collapsing dimensions, and toying with visual norms.

All three of these artists create art that is in motion, that are in between gifs and video, and are therefore ideal to catch on a social media stream. And while they are “generated” they are not generated with AI. — KK

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Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak.