Five great crime novels - Boing Boing

Every week, Kevin Kelly, Claudia Dawson, and I send out our Recomendo newsletter. It's a lightweight rundown of six useful things. (Sign up here!) Here's this week's newsletter:

Five good crime books:
On the excellent Five Books website Author Simon Brett is interviewed about his five favorite crime novels. Three of his picks (A Kiss Before Dying, The Big Sleep, and The Talented Mr. Ripley) are among my favorites, so I added his other two picks to my wish list. — MF

Summer enjoyment:
I spent almost four hours lounging in this papasan float on the 4th of July and it’s now my favorite purchase of the year. Half my body stays in the water, so I’m able to stay cool while basking in the sun. The only drawback might be how easy it is to relax — time went by so fast, I got sunburned. — CD

Outstanding listen:
You know about Song Exploder, yes? It’s this amazing podcast that takes one well-known song each week and explodes it into its component parts. The musicians who wrote and perform the song take it apart track by track, sometimes beat by beat, explaining what they were thinking as they created the pieces: what challenges and dead-end they met along the way, how the song changed as they worked on it, and why they like the final version. It’s the x-ray into music I always wanted. — KK

Free app finder:
Daily App Advice shows you which paid apps are currently being given away for free in the iTunes App Store. I’ve found many useful free utilities and games here that usually cost between $1 and $10. — MF

Movie night must-have:
Cinesift is a website that combines film ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and Metacritic and gives you the average. What I find the most helpful is that I can filter my movie search by genre, and limit results to only those available on Amazon Prime and/or Netflix Watch Instantly. That way I don’t waste time flipping between services searching for a movie. — CD

Best work surface:
I have a large self-healing mat on my workbench, and I have smaller cutting mats I lay on a table if I am working. The non-skid surface keeps parts and pieces stationary, while the cushion prevents dings in the table top beneath. And of course, the self-healing mat is ideal for cutting fabrics, paper, etc. with razors and blades. Also protects from spills better than cardboard. It is easy to clean up: just tilt and wipe. It’s become my default surface for any work. Get the largest size you can. At the minimum, an 18 x 24 inch mat covers well and yet is portable and easy to store. — KK

Our guest this week on the Cool Tools Show is Donald Bell. Donald runs a great website called Maker Project Lab, and he also hosts a weekly YouTube show called Maker Update, which collects interesting projects, news, tips, tools, and other stuff for the Maker community. He was a Projects Editor at Make magazine, and […]

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Recomendo is a weekly email newsletter I do with Kevin Kelly and Claudia Dawson. We have 11,000 subscribers. Subscribe here! This week’s recommendations: Kanji tutor: In the last six months I’ve learned over 500 kanji characters and Japanese vocabulary words using WaniKani, a “spaced repetition system” flashcard website. The first 3 levels are free, after […]

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Jason Kottke asked his readers to tell him “what were the best web sites that they knew about that most people have never heard of.” I’ve been going through his curated list of the top 56. My favorite so far is Pink Trombone, a human voice synthesizer. While playing it, I felt my own throat […]

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The Metasploit framework is an open source tool that lets you simulate real attacks against your system. You can get introduced to this essential cyber security software with this Penetration Testing & Ethical Hacking course, available now in the Boing Boing Store.Throughout these 23 lessons, you’ll exploit vulnerabilities, evade antivirus software, and gain unauthorized access […]

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A cable subscription is the most straightforward way to watch live TV, and it’s typically the only way to get access to streaming content from cable networks. But you never get to choose which channels you actually want, and having to use all of their separate streaming services is a pain. Ultimately, you’re paying a […]

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“Phone, wallet, keys.” Many of us recite these words to ourselves each time we leave home, or the office, or a friend’s house, or anywhere at all. They’re the typical essentials we all carry every single day, and would absolutely hate to lose. If you’re a Samsung Galaxy S8 user, however, you can trim the […]