Optics

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 197

Diverse optical supplies

Anchor Optics

Remember Edmund Scientific, the perennial advertiser in the back of science magazines? They sold lenses in addition to all kinds of scientific knick-knacks and basement experimenter supplies. Anchor Optics is a division of Edmund’s upscale optics company, selling mostly to professionals, but at a discount. They’ve got loupes and microscopes, but also Fresnel lenses, commercial grade front-side mirrors, laser parts, optical bench gear, prisms, and advance fiber optic stuff — just about anything optical you can imagine at good prices, Anchor sells Edmund’s surplus or “seconds” — but only second in some cosmetic or inessential way. If you need a lens or an optical flat mirror of a certain size, you’ll probably end up here. — KK

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Source for all scopes

Eagle Optics

You want binoculars? Eagle Optics has hundreds of kinds from two dozen manufacturers. Any model binocular made. You want spotting scopes, or night vision scopes? This is the place. Monoculars, tripods, rangefinders? Eagle Optics has practically every version of them too. Good service. Popular with birders and nature photographers. They have a paper catalog, also. — KK

Burnton Echo 7 x18 Monocular

Extremely small and lightweight.
The Echo zoom monocular is one of the smallest zoom monoculars around and easily carried so it’s always handy. The polymer body is extremely lightweight-weighing less than two ounces- and perfect for a detailed study of nature at your feet. Multi-coated optics and BaK-4 prism glass team up for sharper images at any distance.

Nikon EDG 10×42 Binocular

Engineered to push your birding to the edge.
The powerful 10×42 EDG (pronounced “Edge”) is a stylish binocular that truly elevates superior performance by virtually eliminating chromatic aberration and delivering bright, razor sharp views. Go ahead and push your birding to the edge with Nikon’s EDG binocular.

• Open bridge style with sophisticated quadrangle construction balances perfectly in the hand for comfortable, extended viewing.
• Dual focus knob with locking diopter pairs up a quick, central focusing knob with pop-up diopter adjustments for unparalleled speed and convenience.
• Ratcheting eyecup adjustments allow for a refined view, with or without eyewear.
• Thumb-position memory contours provide optimum traction with a soft-grip tactile surface.
• Magnesium-alloy body cuts weight without sacrificing durability.
• Waterproof and fogproof with O-ring seals and dry nitrogen purging to handle the
• toughest conditions on the planet. (Submersible for up to 10 minutes at a depth of 16.4 feet).

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Handy 10x magnifier

Belomo 10x Triplet Loupe

A few months ago I picked up a Belomo 10x Triplet Loupe ($31) to help out with mushroom identification in the field. As someone who has more experience with camera lenses than loupes, I didn’t know what to expect. What arrived was an immaculately crafted magnifying device that I now carry on a daily basis.

Built by the Belarus Optical and Mechanical Enterprise Company (they once made high quality optics for the Soviet Union during the Cold War), the minuscule 10x loupe radiates a quality of craft and “thingness” that I’ve previously only seen in Leica glass. This comparison is in part owed to the superb optics, but also to the textured black enamel that coats the folding steel case coupled with its solid build quality.

The loupe itself is compact, quick to fold out, and easy to use. Between using it to identify mushrooms, to seeing the destruction I wreak on my fingernails, or the dulled edge of my kitchen knives, I have found the ability to easily magnify anything 10x (or more) has given me a renewed appreciation for the smaller things in life.

My decision to pick up the 10x magnification instead of the 15x or 20x was driven by cost and usability. Everyone I spoke to seemed to agree that 10x had the best balance between field of view, depth of field, and cost. Unlike other loupes where you can change magnification through opening up additional lenses, the Belomo relies on a single lens system that reduces the chance of breaking, while providing greater optical quality and increased light. The image quality is really fantastic.

One of the best features of the Belomo Loupe is the ability to incorporate it as an external macro lens with my iPhone camera. The small sensor size coupled with the Loupe means that it has enough depth of field to create photos I can use to identify when I get home. I’ve been blown away with the results.

The Belomo loupe is a fantastic EDC tool that provides a new way to look at the world. I can’t recommend it enough. — Oliver Hulland

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Flexible portable neon

El Wire

Do-it-yourself neon. This thin electro-luminescent wire (el-wire) glows very brightly. You can bend it easily, tie it to anything. It produces essentially no heat. Best all of it runs on batteries, meaning you can wear it or use it on your bicycle. We make signs with it and, of course, some wild costumes. El-wire (also called Live Wire) has been used to great effect in the night parades at Burning Man; I still have vivid memories of an animated neon kangaroo (mounted on the side of a bike) galloping across the desert. It comes in various lengths from .5 m to 10 m (you can cut it if you know what you are doing) and in eight colors. You can also make it strobe. It is the world’s most flexible light. It is very cool stuff. — KK

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Cool bendable lights

Glow Tubes, in bulk

I’m partial to those foot-long noodles that glow in various shades of color, also popular at raves. They are plastic tubes with a glass insert that start to luminesce when snapped. Like road safety sticks but thinner, longer, more flexible and cheaper. These floppy light wands say: be creative! The tubes come with a plastic coupler that can connect them in a chain or in a circle. Since they are flexible and light and cheap they can be woven into bike spokes, sewn on clothes, spun, pinned, or swung. They’ll last 7 or 8 hours and if by chance you are near a freezer you can freeze “ignited” ones; just thaw them out and they start glowing again. You don’t have to go to raves or Burning Man to enjoy them. We break them out for Halloween, Fourth of July, birthday parties, and dark nights while camping. Called glow sticks, they are available from a number of online sources (check for rave suppliers). The come in all sizes from mini-sticks to swords.

One or two tubes are okay; the key to the fun is to get them in bulk, by the hundreds. One hundred 8″ sections should be about 10 cents a piece, or $10. One hundred is not too many. It’s barely enough to cover a jacket with them, or decorate 3 bicycles, or make a huge glowing hula hoop, or enough bangles for all the arms at a party. The supplier below has the lowest prices I’ve come across and I’ve used them with no problems. — KK

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

07/6/26

Retro Recomendo: Outdoor Essentials

Recomendo - issue #521

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 10 years.

Prescription dive mask

I wish I had realized years ago that you can get scuba masks with inexpensive prescription lenses. My wife needs heavy duty glasses, with severe -10 corrections, and was otherwise blind underwater. But she got a great simple diving mask with -10 lenses for $60. This Promate Slender Mask is available with Rx lenses from GetWetStore. Now she can snorkel with the rest of us. — KK

Four legs

Hiking poles give me two extra legs. They are most useful going downhill, over uneven or wet terrain. I bring them wherever I hike, especially when I travel, because I use a collapsible set that folds up to less than 14 inches (36 cm). That not only fits in carry-on luggage, it will also hide away in a day pack, so I can take them out only when needed. These no-name $26 Covacure Trekking Poles are a bargain and pretty typical of the class: lightweight aluminum, unfold in a second, and are very rigid. You can get featherweight carbon fiber if you want to pay more. — KK

Ultralight trail running shoes + foam insoles

After a couple of years of walking five miles a day on my treadmill desk, my knees and feet were starting to feel worse for wear. I read Craig Mod’s recommendation for TSLA lightweight trail running shoes with a wide toebox and high-quality insoles and bought them. A month later, I’m pleasantly surprised that my knee and feet pain is gone. I just bought a second pair in another color because I don’t want to wear any other shoe. — MF

Hand crank LED lantern

Last week, Southern California experienced a heavy rainstorm that caused a power outage in our area for 18 hours. We would have been in the dark without the Goal Zero Lighthouse 600 Camping Lantern. It features a bright and adjustable LED light, as well as a built-in lithium battery that can charge smartphones and other USB devices. In case of a power failure, the lantern can also be powered manually by turning a crank for one minute, which provides 10 minutes of illumination. — MF

Packable caps

My current go-to hiking hat is the Parapack P-CAP—an adjustable, foldable cap that’s so breathable and lightweight it barely feels like I’m wearing anything. It also looks better than most of my sun hats and is far less bulky. I keep it in my purse now because it packs down so small. You can even fold it into a compact pouch. — CD

Water bottle sling

For walks and shorter hikes, I’ve been skipping my daypack in favor of ChicoBag’s water bottle sling. It’s comfortable, easy to wear, and has a surprisingly roomy pocket for my phone and keys. Like most ChicoBags, it folds down to almost nothing, so I just keep it with me at all times. — CD

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07/5/26

Book Freak #265 — Deep Cut Edition

The forgotten H.G. Wells novel that reads like next week

Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928) is the late, nearly-forgotten H. G. Wells novel that he called his own Candide. A comfortable Englishman is betrayed, breaks down, and washes up among the cannibals of Rampole Island, where a giant prehistoric ground sloth still lumbers through the gorges and nothing is what it seems. It is the first Deep Cut I’ve turned into a full Book Freak Edition for the new reading club, and you can download the ebook below.

Most people have heard of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Almost nobody has heard of Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island. I stumbled on it in the early 2000s, when I was on a reading jag about people getting stranded on deserted islands.

Published in 1928, Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island was the 38th of the 52 novels Wells wrote. His first was The Time Machine (1895); his last was You Can’t Be Too Careful, published in 1941, five years before his death.

It’s narrated in the first person by Arnold Blettsworthy, a wide-eyed optimist whose faith in a decent, orderly world collapses when he finds his best friend and his fiancee in bed together. To clear his head, Blettsworthy sets off on an ocean voyage around the world, and ends up cast away on “Rampole Island,” a place of savages that turns out to be a mirror held up to civilization itself.

The book is part castaway adventure, part social satire, and part something stranger and more inward. As Blettsworthy himself puts it, “the story I have to tell is at its core a mental case.” Wells is exploring a single disordered mind rather than a distant planet, an early experiment in what later science fiction would call “inner space.”

It didn’t sell well. Wells’s biographer David Smith calls it one of his “least read books.” But the reviews were warm. A 1928 notice in *TIME*, headlined “Sacred Lunatic,” called it “an eminently good yarn packed with humor, humanity.” Wells’s friend the historian Eileen Power thought it “absolutely first class.” Later judgments were kinder still: Everett Bleiler, surveying early science fiction, called it “a very interesting, well-accomplished book.”

Core Principles

We are raised on false assurances

Adrift on a sinking derelict, certain he is about to drown, Blettsworthy works out where his optimism came from. “To keep us quiet when we are children, and to make us nice and good and confident, we are given all sorts of assurances about life for which there are no justifications, and by the time we have found them out we are already too far off from human things to expose the deception.”

The savage island is a mirror

Rampole Island looks at first like pure adventure-story exotica: cannibals, war drums, a soothsayer, sheer cliffs. The longer Blettsworthy lives there, the more its cruelties start to rhyme with the civilization he came from. The islanders justify their savagery with elaborate ritual and high-sounding talk, exactly the way respectable people do. By the time you reach the end, you understand that the island was never as far from London or New York as it pretended to be.

The dreary megatheria

The giant sloths are huge, filthy, slow beasts that are protected by the people who half-worship and half-fear them. They represent dogmatic thinking and old hatreds that are kept alive because nobody can imagine the world without them.

You can be disillusioned and still choose to go on

Blettsworthy loses his comfortable optimism (and a good deal more). But he finds a smaller, tougher, clearer-eyed willingness to keep living and keep loving. Wells, who had every reason in 1928 to write a bitter book (his wife died a year earlier), wrote a humane one instead. .

Try It Now

1. Write down one “assurance about life” you were handed as a child (hard work always pays off, good people get their reward, the system is basically fair). Then write down one time reality contradicted it.
2. Find one of your own megatheria: a habit, a grudge, a tradition, an opinion you keep alive for no good reason. Ask what it would cost to let it finally go extinct.
3. Read forty pages of Mr. Blettsworthy this week and share your thought in the discussion thread below.

Quote

“The abnormal is only the normal disproportioned.”

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Download the Book Freak Edition

This is the first featured pick of the Deep Cuts Reading Club, the new paid-subscriber benefit. Every month I take a forgotten public-domain book and make a a clean ebook in EPUB and PDF.

Your copy of Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island is linked below — grab the EPUB for your phone or e-reader, or the PDF to read anywhere…

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Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, 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, and Book Freak.

07/3/26

Cable Luggage Lock/Compact Speaker/Duffel Bag in a Pouch

Nomadico issue #213

Retractable Luggage Lock for Suitcases

There’s no shortage of articles and videos online about people having their whole suitcase or daypack stolen while in a public place or on a train, especially in Europe. I nap easy on a train even if my bag is at the end of the compartment thanks to this inexpensive retractable cable luggage lock. It can fit through zipper clasps on quality suitcases or through the handles to ensure that your bag is not going anywhere until you unlock it with your combination.

JBL Go Speaker Packs a Punch

I like this little water-resistant Bluetooth speaker so much that when I lost one, I bought the same model as a replacement. It fits in the palm of my hand and is easy to pack, but punches above its size in volume and bass, providing a good sonic range. The newest model is the JBL Go5, but I have the Go4 and it’s technically equal but just doesn’t light up (preferable to me) and it’s under $40.

Small Electric Toothbrush

Back in July of 2024 I highlighted the slim Philips One by Sonicare electric travel toothbrush that I’d bought. I made a mistake and got the battery powered one that has since been discontinued. It’s still going strong, but my wife has the rechargeable one that is still available and has also performed well for even longer. It doesn’t vibrate as hard as a big one like people have at home, but it’s lighter and much smaller for packing—not much bigger than a regular manual toothbrush.

Packable Duffel Bag

Ever need to come home with more items than you left with? You could buy additional luggage on the other end, but when I can anticipate this happening, like I did this trip from shopping and getting useful trade show swag, I bring along a duffel bag that packs down into a little pouch. I have tried a few different ones, all working well, but here are two examples from Eagle Creek and Bago. One of these can also be useful if you manage to jam everything into an underseat bag for a short trip on a budget airline and want a larger bag to expand into for moving around on the other end.

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

07/2/26

What’s in my NOW? — Todd Henion

issue #260

Todd Henion is a recently retired airline pilot now trying to fix the world one toaster at a time.

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PHYSICAL

• Finite and Infinite Games – James Carse: This book has changed all the measures and time markers in my life. Understanding and identifying an infinite game radically adjusts my goals and roles. Simon Sinek has recently reworked and broadened this dichotomy into organizational psychology in his book The Infinite Game. Both categories of game are worth playing, but the rules and outcomes are dramatically different.
• JetStream Pens: There is no better smooth ballpoint pen. Pretty cheap and very reliable. Everyday ballpoint writer with stunningly gentle flow.
• 11-in-1 Klein Screwdriver: Among the highlights of my month are our local Repair Cafes. Neighbors bring in broken and damaged appliances, clothes, and all sorts of stuff. We volunteers try to repair them in collaboration with the owner. This simple multi-bit screwdriver that I carry most days, allows access to the insides of so many household items—despite different screw types—allowing me to work to understand how the machine works and how to put it right. The puzzle-solving, in partnership with the owner, is really joyful. A screwdriver can be a magic key.

DIGITAL

• Libby App: Having 10-20 good books in my pocket at all times to divert my scrolling brain into a story or concept is the fruition of childhood fantasy. And add that it is all free and very pleasant to use.
• Instapaper (Read it Later app for news and websites): “One should always have something sensational to read on the train” —Wilde

INVISIBLE

“I don’t mind what happens.” — J. Krishnamurti*

I discovered this quote many years ago and just recently (two or three years ago) started to interrogate what he might have meant and what it means to me. I find it represents both a “Yes, and…” acceptance of our very limited ability for control. And subtracts the unhealthy attachment to outcomes that we automatically generate.

“I don’t mind what happens. That is the essence of inner freedom. It is a timeless spiritual truth: release attachment to outcomes, deep inside yourself, you’ll feel good no matter what.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

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07/1/26

The Sartorialist / Asterix and the Missing Scroll

Issue No. 124

THE SARTORIALIST – NYC STYLISH STRANGERS HAPPILY CAUGHT BY A CANDID CAMERA

The Sartorialist
by Scott Schuman
Penguin Books
2009, 512 pages, 5.2 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

Scott Schuman once worked in the fashion industry but found that the outfits that amateurs wore on the streets of New York City to be a lot more interesting than those from famous designers. He began photographing people on the street who caught his eye, and, with their permission, posted their images on his blog, The Sartorialist. His street photos had their own style, and soon fashion followers were happy to be caught by Schumans’s candid camera. Soon The Sartorialist blog became legendary in the fashion world. It was also the first of many photo blogs to feature street fashion – showcasing what people with a personal flair wore everyday. This brick of a book collects the best of The Sartorialist’s first 10 years of images. It works as a one-stop shop of hip clothing designs; it also works as a document of “what they wore” in 2010; and it also works as a cool gallery of contemporary fashion photography. It lacks the richness of the life stories in Humans of New York, but it gains something by focusing so obsessively on the design decisions of creative people. A second volume called The Sartorialist X, takes Schuman outside of New York to other cities of the world. – Kevin Kelly

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THE LATEST ASTERIX BY THE NEW TEAM IS MORE INVENTIVE AND MUCH FUNNIER THAN ITS PREDECESSOR

Asterix and the Missing Scroll
by Jean-Yves Ferri (author) and Didier Conrad (illustrator)
Asterix
2015, 48 pages, 8.9 x 11.6 x 0.4 inches

Buy on Amazon

One has to sympathize with the writer-artist team of Ferri and Conrad, taking on the daunting task of creating new adventures for Asterix 56 years after the small-but-mighty Asterix the Gaul’s creation by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. The new team’s first Asterix adventure, “Asterix and the Picts” in 2013, was understandably a little stiff, both in terms of humor and art, as if the new guys didn’t want to risk disrupting so many years of tradition. This time around, however, they’ve loosened up considerably.

“Asterix and the Missing Scroll,” the 36th entry in the series, is more inventive in plot and much funnier both in script and visuals than its predecessor. The story is a riff on the WikiLeaks scandal, and a quite brilliant one at that. It turns out a journalist named – punningly, in the best Goscinny tradition – Confountheirpolitix, has secured a censored chapter from Julius Caesar’s autobiography that details the emperor’s repeated defeats at the hands of Asterix, his rotund pal Obelix, and their village of indomitable Frenchmen. The journalist wants to publish the story, so he turns to the only people Caesar can’t beat to help him with the job. Hi-jinks, of course, ensue.

Along with the light political commentary, there are the usually puns and running jokes – Obelix is flustered by his horoscope, which warns him to cut back on his favorite meal of roast boar, and complains about his fate throughout the book. There’s also a clever scene near the end that pays loving tribute to the strip’s original creators.

Conrad’s art is gorgeous. While he’s still emulating Uderzo, his line is a bit crisper and he pulls off several showstopping large panels, beautifully composed and full of rich detail. His visual storytelling is smooth and clear and he pulls off slapstick scenes without a hitch. Only the least-forgiving of Asterix purists would dislike this story, and those new to the series should be thoroughly entertained – even young children who don’t get all the subtext. It’ll be fun to see what the new team does next time around, when they’re even more comfortable filling Goscinny and Uderzo’s shoes. – John Firehammer

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Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

06/30/26

What’s in my NOW? — Todd Henion