Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted. Tell us what you love.
After nearly a lifetime of getting Costanza’ed in the bottom by my wallet, I began to use this 35¢ tool and have never looked back, so to speak.
It firmly clamps bills and even cards in place until use, is easily removable and has caused much envious conversation.
The only drawback is that I bought a box of 12 (the smallest I could find) and am still using the same one after six years.
Appropriate technology rules!
I’m guessing that when technology permits us to design and produce our own clothes as easily as we do our websites, we’ll go beyond jeans and start making our outfits a little more distinctive. These one-at-at-time items will be supremely personalized, unique. And a return to the way wardrobes of past were once also made one-at-a-time into distinctly personal items. When that moment comes, you might want to lose yourself in this massive 600-page archive, which catalogs the full diversity of costumes from around the world. Over 1,000 glorious illustrations, in astounding ethnographic variety. Tribal, royalty, folk. Outerwear, footwear, headgear, armor. It is the best one-volume summary of Fashion on Earth I’ve seen. (It’s expensive, so check it out at your library.)
A circumcision waistcoat possible from the Hebron Hills during the British Mandate period, or earlier. The groundcloth is Atlas satin, a luxury fabric woven with a silk wrap and a cotton weft. The front of the waistcoat is thickly cover with a variety of coins, the better to express the high social value of the boy wearing it. Length 11 7/8 in. (30cm).
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The 19th-century tall hats and enveloping cloaks of certain of the Welsh peasantry were markedly behind the times. These garments bear a decided resemblance to the popular image of a witch precisely because they were the characteristic wear of the time of witchcraft persecutions of the 1630s.
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Above her richly patterned sleeveless coat, worn over an ornate red silk dress with high shoulder pads, a stand-up collar and blue turned-up cuffs–an outstanding example of the festive dress of the 19th-century Mongolian nobility–this Chalka tribeswoman models the “sheephorn headdress.”
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Front and back views of a Micronesian warrior suit made of knotted coconut-palm fiber. the accompany thing upper-body armor is sturdily construction of plaited bast fiber. Length 32 1/2 in. (82.5cm), width 15 in. (38cm).
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A walrus-gut kamleika made by the Yup’ik people of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, in the mid- to late 19th century. It is adorned with eats and small feathers of the crested auklet. Length 43 in. (109.2 cm), width 54 in. (137 cm).
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This 1950s Conibo man is clad is a cushma, a long, wide, poncho-like cotton tunic that has been worn in the area since perhispanic times. The brown to black dye used in decorating these garments is obtained by boiling mahogany bark.
Barricade Fire Gel is a foam that you spray on your house before a wildfire. It stays wet for 48 hours and keeps burning embers from igniting the house. It easily washes off and, unlike most compressed air foam (CAF) systems, is EPA certified as nontoxic.
I tested it on cardboard held over a gas stove flame, and it didn’t ignite in 10 minutes. Also, I applied it to the outside of my home, over a very dry Labor Day weekend, and it stayed put and wet for 48h. (A bear licked some of it off, so it doesn’t taste like petrochemicals.) As the pictures from the vendor’s site show, Fire Gel comes in 1 gallon containers, and you attach a garden hose and an eductor-jet pump to it. What this means is that a small person can lift it and apply it. In other CAF systems, there’s a huge amount of heavy equipment that depends on different power supplies, and it’s heavy and complex. The foam is relatively cheap on those systems — the applicator is expensive. Barricade took a different tack, and put expensive engineering into the foam, which is very effective and tastes good to bears.
Here in the mountains of Boulder, Colorado, Barricade Fire Gel is one part of my fire plan. This is only one part of a fire plan, and I’d urge anyone who buys FireGel to go to a workshop with your local fire department to maximize your chance of coming out unscathed. Another motivation to become more involved in fire protection is that in recent fires here, folks found out that they were woefully underinsured, and can’t rebuild their old house. Less than 10% were adequately insured to rebuild in the mountains, and we’re talking an educated affluent population.
I am remodeling a kitchen and we had a friend come and install marmoleum floors and countertops. I always enjoy working with different contractors because everyone has their own systems. Brett was quite meticulous, which comes with his vast experience. I was impressed by his carpet stair tool, which I had never seen before. It looks like a big masonry chisel, but he used it to level seams between plywood subflooring edges.
Once two sheets have been nailed down next to one another Brett ran the edge of the tool along the seam — it runs smoothly where the sheets are in the same plane and hits a bump on one side or the other if the sheets are out of plane. He then took a hammer, hit down the side that was high, and ran the tool over the seam again to check. The he filled the seam with a fast-drying mortar to ensure the seam was strong and stayed in plane.
The carpet stair tool also has a mushroomed head for striking with a hammer. But you can also use it to drive down nails that are hard to access because they are under cabinetry toe kicks — just put the mushroomed head against the nail and hit the blade of the tool with a hammer.
I have owned a Skagen watch for almost a decade. I grew up on bulky cheap utilitarian watches (which I still own & use while doing work around the house or while camping) and always thought that most fancy watches were boring, heavy and identical. Until I picked up a Skagen.
Skagen watches are sleek, durable and completely different from anything else on the market. The case of my watch is less than 8mm thick. It doesn’t even feel like I’m wearing a watch. They come in various colors, metals & different dial designs. The titanium band coupled with the thinness of their watches is what really sets them apart.
The titanium band takes a little getting used to. It doesn’t flex or grab your arm hair like your grandfather’s watch. Instead you set the length for the clasp by sliding the catch mechanism and locking it in place via a slick hidden lock under the latch. Once you get the length set, you’ll never have to readjust a thing.
Occasionally when I forget to grab my cheap watch, I have snagged and torn the titanium band apart (like separating links of chain mail). For $30 Skagen has sent me a new band pretty quickly. Once, I dropped my watch on it’s face and destroyed the glass. Again for a $30 repair fee, instead of replacing the glass, they sent me a brand new watch. When they say lifetime warranty, they back it up.
If you’re looking for a slick thin timepiece, check out Skagen. You’ll receive more compliments & questions about where to buy one than you can shake your old Casio at.
Over the years, I have tried many different ways to make coffee, from cowboy percolators to French press carafes to Chemex drippers. As I’ve moved through the years, however, the reduced acids of espresso have attracted me, and I happily settled on espresso for my java.
If you have tried conventional espresso machines, you are familiar with the grinding, the hissing, and the pumping that accompanies every cup. With the advent of the ROK espresso maker, all that goes away. With this truly portable device, now that perfect shot of espresso can be had wherever there is hot water — at the office, at your campsite, or just in the peace and quiet of your own kitchen!
Every morning, I use a Porlex hand grinder to reduce my beans of choice to fine fragments while my water comes to a boil. As the cylinder preheats, I am entranced by the curl of steam rising past the connection arms. Slowly raising the arms allows the water to drift past the plunger, and I gently press to heat the portafilter and my cup. Although it wasn’t designed for the task, the bottom of the Porlex works very well to tamp the grounds into the portafilter, and I’m ready for my espresso. Refilling the cylinder and raising the arms once again, I quietly and firmly press a perfect double shot of espresso!
On those days when milk is desired, the ROK comes with a hand-pumped milk frother. Although you can get your beverage hotter by frothing warm milk, you’ll find the foam is denser if you froth cold milk before heating it in the microwave.
Cleaning the ROK takes very little effort. For the most part, a quick rinse is all that’s necessary. Though some users will let it drip-dry, the ROK should be toweled unless you don’t mind water spots.
There are many alternatives on the market, and a devoted aficionado could easily spend $3000 for a high quality machine. Although they will all give you an excellent cup of espresso, they share two shortcomings: They all must be plugged in, and they all make noise.
With the ROK, the whole brewing process, start to finish, takes less than 10 minutes. Ten quiet, meditative minutes before I launch into the day!
Disclosure: I have happily owned and used the Presso, the earlier version of the ROK, for more than a year.
[Here's a 90-second video introduction to the ROK espresso maker. -- Mark Frauenfelder]
Wood is one of the most versatile materials known. You can coax it into uncountable forms. However It exhibits extremely complex behavior, as if it were still living. This tome dives deep into woodology, and returns with great insight into what wood wants. It is essential understanding for anyone wishing to master working with wood.
A knot is the basal portion of a branch whose structure becomes surrounded by the enlarging stem. Since branches begin with lateral buds, knots can always be traced back to the pith of the main stem.
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Various shapes of red pine have been dried and superimposed on their original positions on an adjacent log section. The great tangential than radical shrinkage causes squares to become diamond-shaped, cylinders to become oval. Quarter-sawn boards seldom warp, but flat sawn boards cup away from the pith.
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A wafer cut from a kiln-dried plank of white ash shows no symptoms of stress (left). Another section from the same plank, after resawing (center) reveals the casehardened condition (tension in core, compression in shell). Kiln operators cut fork-shaped sections that reveal casehardening when prongs curve inward (right).
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Most of the boards in the drying shed at left are restrained by the weight of the others. At right is a similar, simpler setup, where the wood is protected by a sheet of corrugated plastic. In both cases, the boards are stacked in the sequence they came off the saw.
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Red oak end grain cut with a ripsaw (right), which mangles the cell structure, and with a crosscut saw (left), which severs the fibers cleanly.
The Jimi Wallet is a minimalist hard-shell plastic case design. It’s the perfect antidote to the “Costanza Wallet” syndrome my dad had, because it forces you to discard all but what you really need.
The Jimi has room for exactly three pieces of plastic, a security access card, and a money clip that holds 5-6 bills. That’s it.
The Jimi pops open with a bit of pressure applied to a few dimples. You can do it easily with one hand without looking.
I have owned several Jimis over the last decade. The build quality is excellent. Realistically, I find that I get three years of daily use out of one before the plastic joint starts to fray. I am okay with this, because it gives me the opportunity to get a new color.
I’ve got nothing against slim leather or cloth wallets, but the Jimi is what works for me. It was the wallet equivalent of coming in from the cold. I can say with no exaggeration that I get a minimum of one compliment a week on it when I pull it out in stores or restaurants. People see it an intuitively get that it’s an evolution.
Cool Tools is giving away a copy of the book, Getting Started with Arduino* to one person who signs up for the Cool Tools Newsletter between now and Thursday, May 23 at 10pm PT. (Current newsletter subscribers are automatically included in the running.)
From the publisher’s description:
Arduino is the open-source electronics prototyping platform that’s taken the design and hobbyist world by storm. This thorough introduction, updated for Arduino 1.0, gives you lots of ideas for projects and helps you work with them right away. From getting organized to putting the final touches on your prototype, all the information you need is here!
Inside, you’ll learn about:
Interaction design and physical computing
The Arduino hardware and software development environment
Basics of electricity and electronics
Prototyping on a solderless breadboard
Drawing a schematic diagram
Getting started with Arduino is a snap. To use the introductory examples in this guide, all you need an Arduino Uno or earlier model, along with USB A-B cable and an LED. The easy-to-use Arduino development environment is free to download.Join hundreds of thousands of hobbyists who have discovered this incredible (and educational) platform. Written by the co-founder of the Arduino project, Getting Started with Arduino gets you in on all the fun!
We’ll pick one newsletter subscriber at random to receive the giveaway. We hold giveaways every Friday, so if you aren’t selected this time, try again next week.
(* I am an editor at Make, a magazine that is owned by the company that published Getting Started with Arduino).
OXO has a serious presence in my kitchen, but the one- and two-cup adjustable measuring cups I added four months ago might be the last items I would sell. They are darned near perfect.
I’ve used other plunger-and-sleeve style adjustable measuring cups, and they were great for measuring odd quantities or volumes without using several different-sized cups (or one size several times), but sticky or oily stuff got in between the plunger and the sleeve, making reuse impossible without stopping to disassemble and clean the cup.
OXO has taken a page from the AeroPress coffee maker and solved this problem by using a similar gasket on the end of the plunger that seals against the sleeve and pushes the measured item out. The plunger rides in helical grooves in the sleeve, so one twists to adjust the measurement or eject the measured item. This makes additive measurements of a second item easy and allows more controlled ejection, too.
The grooves stop short of the extent that would allow you to pull the plunger from the bottom of the sleeve, ensuring that the gasket wipes the sleeve. End result: the only part you usually wash is the gasket itself.
The sleeve is marked in multiple units, with one set for liquid measure and one set for dry; the latter assumes some empty space at the top, great for coarse items, lightweight flours — and shaky hands.
These fulfill OXO’s stated mission of not just reproducing tools, but finding ways of improving the functionality by a noticeable amount.
Remember when choosing a prospective lawyer, a good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the judge. – Adam Ryder
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