Ultralightweight wristwatch with excellent lifetime warranty
05-21-13

Skagen Titanium Blue Dial Watch

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.

-- Daniel Smyth  

Skagen Titanium Blue Dial Watch
$72

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Skagen

 
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Make espresso without a lot of noise
05-20-13

ROK Espresso Maker

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.

-- Conan Cocallas  

[Here's a 90-second video introduction to the ROK espresso maker. -- Mark Frauenfelder]

ROK Espresso Maker
$187

Manufactured by ROK

 
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What wood wants
05-19-13

Understanding Wood

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.

-- KK  

Understanding Wood
Bruce Hoadley
2000, 280 pages
$27

Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

1

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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2

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3

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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4

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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5

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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6

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.


 
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Minimalist hard-shell plastic wallet forces you to pare down what you carry
05-18-13

Jimi Wallet

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.

-- Pete Forde  

Jimi Wallet
$15

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Jimi

 
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Best beginner intro to Arduino
05-17-13

Giveaway! Copy of Getting Started with Arduino

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).

-- Mark Frauenfelder  

Getting Started with Arduino, by Massimo Banzi
128 pages
$8

Available from Amazon

 
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Precise ingredient measurement and easy clean-up
05-17-13

OXO adjustable measuring cup

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.

-- Pierce Presley  

OXO Good Grips 2-Cup Adjustable Measuring Cup
$12

Available from Amazon

 
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05-16-13

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms

Best tutorial on growing mushrooms

Once you get hooked on foraging for wild mushrooms, you begin to wonder why you can’t just farm them. Picking mushrooms from your backyard or basement would sure be a lot easier than roaming the hinterlands. Well, so far about 30 different kinds mushrooms can be cultivated, although none of the techniques are trivial. The delicate operations needed to produce sterile “soil” and inoculate the spores has been streamlined for some species (by using pre-inoculated plugs), but there is still a lot of skill and laboratory expertise needed to grow the rest. Most of what is known about mushroom cultivation has been distilled into the 3rd edition of this irreplaceable book. This is simply the best guide to growing edible, medicinal, and psychoactive mushrooms.

This is a fast-changing field where enthusiastic amateurs lead the way. To keep up with new possibilities, check the authors website at Fungi Perfect. Farming mushrooms is also becoming a business, and the Mushroom Growers’ Newsletter is the hub.

-- KK  

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
Paul Stamets
2000, 614 pages
$30

Available from Amazon

Sample Excerpts:

In one of my outdoor wood-chip beds, I created a “polyculture” mushroom patch about 50 by 100 feet in size. In the spring I acquired mixed wood chips from the county utility company–mostly alder and Douglas fir–and inoculated three species into it. One year after inoculation, in late April through May, Morels showed. From June to early September, Kind Stropharia erupted with force, providing our family with several hundred pounds. In late September through much of November, as assortment of Clustered Woodlovers (Hypholoma-like) species popped up. With noncoincident fruiting cycles, this Zen-like polyculture approach is limited only by your imagination.

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growing-gourmet-and-medicinal-mushrooms2sm
[click for larger]


 
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Self-contained tube and tire repait kit
05-15-13

Lezyne Bike Tire Patch Kit

After years of carrying around a repair kit of bits and pieces for my biking excursions I decided to upgrade and replace almost all my bike gear. I came across this patch kit in a shop in London. Its a small aluminium sleeve containing adhesive patches, a tire boot (for those occasions when you need to patch the tire as well as the tube) and a scuffer to rough up the area of the tube before applying the patch.

The package also includes two strong nylon tire levers, which double as end caps for either side of the sleeve, neatly ensuring that everything stays together in your pocket or bag. This little kit, together with a spare tube and mini pump, is all I need to carry out when I go for a ride. The sleeve comes in various color options and I have a seen a few different shops sell them custom branded with their logos on.

-- Jeremy Gould  

Lezyne Lever Kit
$9

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Lezyne

 
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Lightweight, smooth-writing pen
05-14-13

Parker Jotter Pen

Earlier this year I purchased a Parker Jotter stainless steel pen based purely on its cool factor as being the pen that James Bond used in the 1995 film Goldeneye, as I had seen on the Bond Lifestyle web page. I searched for it online and ended up purchasing one from my local office and art supply store. I appreciated its sleek design and modest price coupled with the cool factor instantly… but the more I used the pen during my work days the more I came to appreciate it, for you see this pen ultimately changed my life.

As a teacher I am called upon to sign documents on a near daily basis — sign this attendance report, sign this behavior report, write a tardy slip, sign this check out form, etc. It seems never ending. I found myself constantly fumbling for a pen, having to borrow pens that had bits of tape on them or had been turned into paper-mache flowers to make sure they didn’t “walk away” in someones pocket. It was humiliating, but what is one to do when operating on a modest teacher’s salary? Plastic pens were pedestrian and forgettable, clicking gel pens with oversized rubbery cushioned grips were tedious when removing or inserting into the standard pen-socket that my button up shirts provided. Only the Parker Jotter was suitable for my needs! Its slippery profile glides into my shirt pocket, the light weight barely noticeable. It is easily retrieved and the polished components in the pen cap provide the authoritarian click that I need to sign these endless cascades of documents with prudence. Its smooth writing allows my own graceful chicken scratch to be properly rendered, with little hand cramping during extended grading sessions. At a modest price of between $10 to $15 for the stainless steel model, this classic writing implement should be owned by all. When I rise at the ungodly hour required and begin my daily rituals of preparing for my work life, I experience a sense of satisfaction when I pick up my Jotter and realize there is one more thing to look forward to.

Compared to similarly priced models the Parker Jotter provides value. I have a Zebra F-301 that I carry as a backup and find the design to be over wrought, with a useless and slippery plastic grip. It feels like I am scratching the paper compared to the Jotter. Anyone that appreciates the classic slip stream design of the 60s will fall in love with the Jotter, just as I have.

-- Seth Wilson  

Parker Stainless Steel Jotter Pen
$11

Available from Amazon

 
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Easy, no-soap wok and pan cleaning tool
05-13-13

Bamboo Wok Brush

I use well-seasoned cast iron and carbon steel pans for the better part of my cooking. To clean them, I’ve used the same bamboo wok brush than I bought at a corner market in Sacramento in 1990. I’ve been thinking of buying a new one, just so I can phase it in over a few years while I slowly retire the original. It only takes a few swishes around the inside of the pan with hot water (no soap!) and a rinse to clean a pan. In the time I’ve been using it on my iron and steel pans, including the wok I use occasionally, I’ve gone through countless sponges, scotch-brite pads, and those looped-plastic scrubbies that I use on stock pots etc., all of which get pretty hinky once put into use and have to be run through the dishwasher to get free of food particles. It also looks dignified and fine sitting on the countertop by the sink, has just gotten more seasoned, and never needs more than a rinse to get clean. The edges of the cane bristles are pretty blunted by now and a new one might work better for attacking the occasional nuclear cooking mess. On the other hand, it’s gentle enough on the built-up seasoning in my pans that they keep getting non-stickier and shed scorched cheese like schmutz on teflon.

The brush I bought way back when has flat bristles, about 11 inches long by 3/16 wide, and stouter than most of the wok brushes I’ve seen recently in Asian groceries. I can’t imagine that there’s been much innovation in wok brush technology in the last 3000 years, but quality is probably inconsistent on an item like this, even from the same seller. Unless you have access to Asian markets and can shop around while you’re out making your weekly durian run, Amazon has a variety to choose from, all about $7.50 with shipping. The Wok Shop seems to be reputable, but it might be prudent to order a few just in case yours only lasts as long as a good hamster.

-- Brian Garber-Yonts  

Bamboo Wok Brush
$7

Available from Amazon

 
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