ZD 24.09: Tool Time!

Finding ways to work smarter.

🥃 The Distilled Spirit 🥃

📰 The media (probably) is not making things up.
🏀 Yes, Catlin Clark is that good.
💥 Ukraine is a Hacker’s War.
💰 There are few new stunts in finance.
🤗 Social connections are important.
👊 Bare-knuckle boxing is back.
💬 Saying the weird thing makes dinner parties more fun.

Working in the old toolshed.

🛠 Tooling Roundup 🛠

We love tools and publications about tools here at the ZD. Here are some good ones:

⚡ I’ve used RSS as a way to follow websites as long as I can remember. It really is the best way to consume the internet. Wired has some suggestions for RSS readers to help you break out of the for you page algorithms. This publication is on team Feedly. It is a solid RSS reader but the the AI news gathering features are what sets it apart. Don’t sleep on the Wired Gear section in general, they are strong on all fronts.

📷 Google Photos really is an amazing photos app. Jeremy Caplan tells you why. Beyond that suggestion, Wonder Tools is a great way to stay on top of the finest software tools around.

📓 Good Tools has great advice on a very wide variety of information organizers. Personally I can strongly recommend Raindrop — it is a big part of making this publication happen.

⚡Zapier is a workflow orchestration software vendor. In an act of enlightened self interest they do some of the best app reviews and suggestions on the net. It is worth the free subscription and this is the place where I start searches for a specific tool.

🪑 Workspaces shares workspaces of creative individuals. It really is a great way to shop for home office gear. Looking at the site can get expensive if you lack self discipline.

🦅 State of the Nation 🦅

I, like many other Americans, watched A24’s Civil War recently. Like many others the movie left me a bit nervous about the state of the national psyche. Here is what I read to settle my mind a bit:

📈Noah Smith sees some reasons to be optimistic today. Even the economist sees reasons to be cheerful about Gen Z.

👷‍♀️Work is changing. Most work is in fields that did not exist a century ago. At the same time, work from home will have a huge impact on the economy. Like tech jobs moving out of California.

⚪As political activism has invaded everything we do many are starting to wonder if we are we trapped in a reality distortion bubble?

😟Understanding what the experience of being poor-ish is like in America.

Stay frosty out there!