White noise alarm clock / Dopamine Shop / Inner sound journeys

White noise alarm clock / Dopamine Shop / Inner sound journeys

Recomendo - issue #537

Claudia Dawson

,

Kevin Kelly

,

and

Mark Frauenfelder

Oct 18, 2026

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The key premise of Recomendo is that everything we have suggested weekly in the past 10 years has been a personal recommendation based on our own experiences. It is something we have seen, heard, visited, or used ourselves. For this Christmas, we’d like to deviate from that principle slightly (and temporarily) to provide you with a dozen of recommendations from our subscribers. That is you. For our brand new

Annual Christmas Reader Recommendations

issue we will select the best personal recommendations submitted within the next 2 weeks by

October 25

. To keep it sane, just one recommendation per subscriber. Keep it short and personal. Suggest a product, tool, app, place, book, documentary, podcast, follow—anything—that you genuinely love, and few know about. No self-promotion. Beyond the dozen we share in the newsletter, we will post all of the vetted submissions on our website.

White noise alarm clock

I needed a new bedside clock, so I got this

Hotmoon Cocoon Pro 3 sound machine

. Besides the dimmable clock display, it has 117 sounds, including 3 kinds of brown noise, my favorite. If you don’t like brown noise, try white, pink, green, blue, red, or gray. Once you set it up with the phone app, you don’t need the app unless you want to stream some of its regularly updated sounds. No subscription is required. It also has a night-light ring with adjustable color and brightness, works as a Bluetooth speaker, and has clearly labeled buttons on top. — MF

Recreational shopping

Recreate the entire ritual of online shopping on

Dopamine Shop

, or on

Food Never Comes

: You search for products, compare reviews, add items to your cart, enter a shipping address, place an order, and even track your delivery. That was fun! Then … nothing happens. No package arrives. No money changes hands. The food never comes. Nothing to return or clean up. You consumed nothing, yet you are an ace shopper. If shopping is your comfort scroll, this is very satisfying late at night. (This trend is big in Korea.) — KK

Inner sound journeys

I recently attended an in-person event with visionary Alana Fairchild, where she led us through a guided imagery meditation to meet Great Mother archetypes like the Black Madonna and Kuan Yin. I was especially moved by her chanting and singing. I own many of her oracle decks, but this recommendation is for her voice. You can experience her meditations and sacred music for

free on Spotify

. — CD

Gossip Goblin

Gossip Goblin

is an Instagram channel of short AI-generated films set in a world that looks like a combination of Terry Gilliam’s

Brazil

and

Mad Max

. It explores themes of artificial intelligence, biohacking, and the merging of humans and machines. The artwork is incredible, as are the acting, stories, and characters. It’s the first time I’ve watched an AI video without thinking “this is AI slop. The Hollywood Reporter

interviewed the creator

, Zack London. His feature-length film,

Gods Don’t Give Gifts

, opens in US theaters October 30. — MF

Revisit childhood through drawings

Kids Trends

is a directory of more than 100 million children’s drawings and paintings that you can search by any keyword. Exploring how children picture the world opens up imaginal portals in my mind. — CD

AI-musical debate

AI-musicals are becoming memes – and the new way to debate ideas.

Not a normal debate

highlights the debate about whether AI is a “normal technology” which has been spun into overdrive with AI-generated musicals defending each side.

One musical

refutes two academics scholarly paper arguing that AI is a normal technology, and the

other AI musical

by the two scholars refutes the first musical. Both musicals are astoundingly good, and even better if you follow the references. — 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

Recomendo Deals

,

Gar’s Tips & Tools

,

Nomadico

,

What’s in my NOW?

,

Tools for Possibilities

,

Books That Belong On Paper

,

Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter

, and

Book Freak

.

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