Five quotables

These gems keep ringing in my head. — KK

Don’t be the best. Be the only. — Jerry Garcia

If you really want to learn how something works, try to change it. — Matt Mazur

For something to be beautiful it doesn’t have to be pretty. — Rei Kawakubo

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. — Frank A. Clark

Eighty percent of success is showing up. — Woody Allen

Ambient music generator
Sleeping Dragon is a generative music application, available for free on Mac and Windows. You adjust sliders, and the software creates a unique piece of never-ending music. I listen to it while I work. If you don’t want to download the software, you can just listen to the calming sounds it generates on its website. — MF

Death reminder app
WeCroak (iOS, Android) is a bit morbid but I love it. At random times throughout the day I get a notification banner that says “Don’t forget, you’re going to die,” with instructions to open the app for a quote. All the quotes are about dying. The app is inspired by Bhutanese culture where one is expected to think about death five times a day to achieve happiness. So far my favorite quote to contemplate is a question from Pema Chödrön: "Since death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?” — CD

Logo-free baseball cap
In my never-ending quest to wear clothes without logos, I found a great source of logo-less baseball caps (better than the discontinued Daiso hats). These hefty Falari caps are $9 and come in a refreshing variety of 34 solid colors. Mine are canary yellow. — KK

An honest book about motherhood
The Female Assumption is a raw and honest look at becoming a mother and the pressures on women to reproduce. I couldn’t put it down. Mother of 3, Melanie Holmes interviewed mothers from all over to accurately portray what happens behind the curtain of motherhood. She also includes the stories of women who have consciously chosen to not be mothers. This book is a well-balanced pros and cons list for either path, and a reminder that whatever you decide for yourself is the right choice. Every young woman should read this. — CD

Magnetic phone mount for cars
I’ve tried many different phone mounts, and this magnetic one ($7) is the best. It’s a rubberized magnet that attaches to a car vent. It comes with a metallic sticker to attach to the back of your phone. When I get in my car, I just hold the phone against the magnetic surface and the phone snaps against it. It is much more convenient than other phone mounts that use spring-loaded clips. — MF

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Recently Paul Saffo and Stewart Brand were raving about the Buff, the all-in-one garment. I am picky and a minimalist when it comes to clothing, but the Buff, in addition to being a shape-shifter, also weighs almost nothing, so I thought I should try it. It's pretty neat, now part of my pack. -- KK

Here is what Paul Saffo wrote:

Y'all probably have known about Buff forever, but in case not, this thing is way cool. Described as "the original multi-functional Seamless Wear", it is a stretchy microfiber tube that can be a neckerchief/neck-scarf, headband, wristband, foulard, bandit-mask, hand-warmer, balaclava and more. I mostly use it as a neck-scarf when biking, and on hikes when it turns cool. Because it is microfiber, it has great thermal and wicking properties -- and it is a great glasses-cleaner.

Stewart Brand adds:

Do see their online movies of the ways to rig a Buff.

https://youtu.be/sSvRm4CHmvE

How to get unstuck. Pick a card at random and either 1) do what it says or 2) let it lead you to another idea. It's amazingly effective. This handsomely boxed stack of cards was created by the lateral genius Brian Eno and good friend Pete Schmidt in 1975 to get themselves and other musicians unstuck in the studio. It's been through four updated editions since.

I use this tool in any design situation to think differently. In life I've found it more productive than throwing the I-Ching or staring at the wall.

This fifth printed edition on heavy silky stock will pop your rut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRc7MUybCsE

More than you wanted to know about Oblique Strategies in its various editions and forms, plus links to digital versions are available at this amazingly complete fan site: Oblique Strategies

This 8-part (4 DVD set) series is a National Science Foundation/PBS production that is the most taxonomic of any presentation I've seen. The Shape of Life addresses the 8 major categories of animal life -- phylum by phylum. Starts with sponges, heads toward round worms, and so on. You get the full diverse view of life -- all intelligently organized around a taxonomic framework (without the vocabulary), and expertly illustrated with great (mostly undersea) BBC-type footage. Despite the wonderful nature photography, the creators work really hard to convey the innovations offered by each phylum, and it works. This series cured me of a rather vague notion of animal diversity, despite my work at All Species. I'd love to ingest the same mind-opening treatment for the plant world, as well as the other 3 kingdoms.

[New DVD sets are available on Amazon for as little as $12, including shipping - MF]

You can triumph in 99% of life's challenges knowing how to tie 6 basic knots -- which is probably 4 more knots than you currently know. The thing about knots is that a few will do if you really own them. Forget about those 300 ingenious knots sailors use, and for now master the few versatile ties taught in this cleverly engineered book. I own most of the knot books, and this is the best one for learning the ropes. It's for klutzes.

Volunteer to teach a boy/girl scout troop using this book; you'll learn fast.

Cheap fast wireless for travel to Japan
I spent almost five weeks in Japan this summer. My T-Mobile plan includes international data but it is pretty slow so I rented a Pocket WiFi from eConnect. I ordered it in advance and picked it up at the post office at Narita Airport. I bought the 50GB plan for about $125. When I came close to running out (our traveling party of five used it pretty much non-stop on their phones and laptops) I bought more data for about $1 per GB. It was very fast and worked everywhere we went, including the remote mountain town of Koya-san. At the airport on the way home I put it in the return mailer and dropped it off at the post office. — MF

Affordable teleprompter
When I make videos where I need to talk to the camera (the audience) I can’t remember what I need to say, so I use this affordable teleprompter. Teleprompters project my visible text on an angled glass that the camera is shooting through. Normally this is a very expensive very cumbersome rig, but the Parrot Teleprompter uses a cheap plastic case, glass mirror, and a selection of lens rings to fit on to many digital cameras. It cleverly uses your smart phone as the screen. For about $100 I got a perfectly useful compact teleprompter mounted on my tripod that worked exactly as I needed. I can deliver my lines easily while directly gazing at the viewers and it looks very natural. — KK

Do nothing for 2 minutes
Expand this webpage to full-screen, turn up the sound and listen to ocean waves for two minutes. If you click on your mouse or press the keyboard the timer starts over. Just enjoy the break. — CD

Home blood type test
My 15-year-old daughter learned about blood types in school and was curious to learn her blood type. I ordered two of these kits (each $7 kit has two tests) so our whole family could find our what our blood types are. The included auto-lance makes it easy to draw blood (it hurts just a little, not much) and it was interesting to see how our blood types clotted differently. — MF

Safe alternative to candles
These Luminara battery-operated taper candles really do look real. I love having them on every night on the dining room table and watching the flame flicker. It makes the room look so elegant. There’s even a timer setting to turn off automatically after 5 hours. — CD

Five quotes

The simplification of anything is always sensational. — G.K. Chesterton

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. — Bertrand Russell

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. — C.S. Lewis

Are we being good ancestors? — Jonas Salk
When I grow up I want to be a little boy. — Joseph Heller

Five quotes above that tickle me. — KK

The site is a recent store on Shopify. They seem to advertise and sell cheap Chinese products like iPhone accessories via ads on Facebook. Their logo looks like this:

Within the last two days we have received two letters from very angry customers who googled “Cool Tools” and wrote to us with their complaints.

First letter:

I recently ordered an item from your website for 24 dollars. I have had a person come to my door asking for an additional £20 customs charge. I believe this is for your item order #CT2085598. I have refused to pay this as I was not made aware at the time of purchase that there would be a customs charge of nearly double the price of the item. I would like to cancel this item. Please arrange that for me. I have tried to contact you and read your refund policy online but the links are not open to contact you on my phone anyway. I believe you advertised this item on my Facebook page. Please refund my money and let me know you have received this email. I will report what happens on my page.

When we informed them it was not our website, they replied:

Well it may not be your website. It may have come through to me on an ad in Facebook. The point is I have ordered a product from your company which I have paid 24 dollars for and I was not made aware that there would be a customs charge of double this. How do I cancel this order and get a refund please ?

Second letter, responding to our claim that it was not our website and we don’t sell anything:

Am I to believe that Cool Tools web site actually thinks they have the Legal Right to take money out of my bank account & keep it under the pretense that they have actually fulfilled their end of an agreement to sell me a product when they never had any intention of delivering said product to me? You people have basically stolen $24.04 from me and are now trying to jibber jabber jaw some BULL SHIT about how you are entitled to keep it by saying you don’t “sell anything” other than advice. You have Got to be kidding me. Trust me when I say that unless I receive my product or my money back immediately, I will spend the rest of my life making Your Life MISERABLE. Don’t think I can do it. Ha! You people are the Scum of the Earth & I will be fully justified in that effort. Any Judge, Lawyer, or average person would agree with me and more than likely join me in the effort to see you brought to Justice. I best be hearing from you very soon or count on looking over your shoulder but never knowing when or what’s coming. ASSHOLES!!!!!

These aren’t the only complaints. Checking the web yields negative reviews on TrustPilot: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/shopcooltools.com

We’ve been reviewing cool tools for 15 years, pointing interested buyers to Amazon, but we don’t sell anything ourselves. But I can understand customer’s confusion. We have contacted and filed a trademark infringement report to Shopify, but I doubt they will do anything. To add to the confusion, I think these fraudulent sales are being done through Facebook ads, under the name Cool Tools. We have of course tried to contact the owners behind this, but like the ripped off customers, we get no response. This could get worse before it gets better.

In the meantime, don’t buy from a Cool Tools ad on Facebook. If you have been ripped off by Shop Cool Tools, please tell Shopify.

Cardboard is a wonderful building material. You can do far more with it than you might expect. Use it to make furniture, sculpture, models, and of course play structures. The common way to assemble projects with cardboard boxes is to slap pieces together with duct tape. But tape is clumsy, expensive, will unpeel outdoors in weather, looks clunky, and won't take paint. A cool alternative are these Kevlar-like rivets specially designed for box cardboard. One shape does both sides. The rivets sport a grippy ratchet that clinches them close, yet enables them to be reused. The large button gives them holding power and allows you to make joints that can swing, too. We've found that you need either two people working, or ape-long arms, to squeeze both sides of the rivet pairs. Also, they are really made for the double wall corrugated cardboard of the kind you find in large appliance boxes; on thin cardboard they aren't as prettily snug, but still will hold fine. A set of 100 (50 pairs) is enough for a small maze.

Simple games are the best. Tangrams are an old puzzle based on a set of elemental shapes that can be arranged in thousands of different patterns. To recreate a given picture is challenging, yet not too daunting even for kids. Playing gently encourages lateral thinking. It exercises a geometrical logic, rather than words or numbers. The puzzles are almost like peanuts; you keep wanting just one more.

We use tangrams as an after dinner parlor game. Everyone gets a set and we compete to find the solution first. Since the shapes can be contained in one large square, you can easily cut your own version from cardboard or plastic (and we have). But I've found that this Tangoes model ($9) is precise, won't wear out, and crates up easily and tidily. Each Tangoes case contains two sets of tangrams (in two different colors) and a nifty set of puzzle pattern cards, all of which slide into a plastic case with instructions on the inside. It's a very nice package. We have several sets, to fill all the seats at a table.

Mind maps are a tool for thinking. Instead of arranging your ideas in a sequence -- as a list of words -- you draw them in an arboreal fashion, radiating out from one starting notion. Mind maps use pictures instead of words, radial branches instead of linear lists, starfish instead of ladders, and associations instead of priorities -- and as a result you think different. The visual trees you generate as you mindmap mirror the dendritic nature of our brain, and seem to flow more organically and (after practice) with less effort than the rigid discipline of making 1,2,3 textual notes.

They are easy to doodle. Anyone can make them. Kids and CEOs as well as creative types. I've come to employ this style of radial association in my own note taking and personal brainstorming. You don't need this book to do it, but the book will help you refine your style, and it will help you expend its use. The authors, who've been perfecting and evangelizing this technique for decades, offer advice on how to use mindmaps to teach, as a form of diary, and most importantly, as a group exercise, say in corporate brainstorming sessions.

There are software programs for mindmapping (which I have not tried), but for me the intensely kinetic mode of drawing ideas (if even on tiny scratch paper) is a great part of the technique's ability to produce new and different perspectives.

Leave it to the Japanese to create a brush pen. This pocketable pen has a super fine brush tip of actual bristles, perfect for tiny Kanji characters, or of course, doodling in your journal, or sketching in your Moleskine. While it's hugely popular with comic book folks and cartoonists, artists of all stripes have picked one up for their paper work. The feel is incredibly tactile and lovely. It works like a fountain pen, with replaceable rich ink cartridges. Once capped it doesn't leak as far as I can tell. (There's a moment of panic when you first assemble it since the instructions are 100% in Japanese, but just insert the ball-bearing end of the ink capsule into the tip.) You can purchase other color inks as well.

What magnificent stuff. Glues together thin layers of paper products such as cardboard, photographs, foam core, even light fabrics, firmly and evenly. Most of the time it's superior to rubber cement, white glue, tape or contact cement. Comes in various formulations. 3M's Spray Mount is most versatile. You can find archival versions, too.

Magnificent! A work of genius. The best how-to manual ever published. I could keep piling on the superlatives because this book is simply a masterpiece. At one level, it is a comic book about how to make comics, and for that it is supreme; the best. It will walk you through every step of making a comic, including how to make them on the web, digitally, or in pen and ink. I've been working on a near-completed graphic novel, and every page has told me something important and spot on. With brilliant graphics, Scott McCloud combines the most profound insights from his two previous books, Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics. But in this book he raises your understanding of graphic communication further by making every lesson utterly practical and useful for both novice and expert. I can't imagine anyone ever doing a comic manual better.

However, even if you are not planning on making a graphic novel, this book is a gold mine. McCloud's section on constructing facial expressions and emotions is astounding, and worth the price of the book alone. The clever way McCloud arrays human expressions in one chart reminds me of the first time I saw all the colors arranged in a color wheel; it's the same aha! The insights McCloud extracts from comics and presents so vividly here are useful to novelists, sociologists, film makers, artists, roboticists -- anyone interested in human expression. That's probably you.

Indeed, even if you have no interest in comics at all, this charming book will win a place in your life because ultimately it is about communication and stories -- and those are the foundations of all cultures. Making Comics teaches you the visual elements of stories. If I had to re-title it, I would call this book Making Visual Stories.

Finally, as an example of communication itself, this comic book has few peers. I read, review and use hundreds of how-to books every year. I can't think of any instructional manual in any subject that is clearer, more thorough, more honest, more user friendly than Making Comics.

As I said, it's a classic. You can expect to find marked-up copies on bookshelves (or on hard drives) a hundred years from now.

There I was, in driving rain, cooking breakfast under a tree over an intense, portable fire. Fresh coffee and scrambled eggs.

It was a Sierra Stove I got for $52. It's a mini-forge, forcing air into a small insulated chamber where a double handful of twigs (or dung or whatever) can heat water in a couple minutes---just a little longer than a butane stove, but with NO fuel or fuel containers to carry. One enthusiast hiked from Mexico to Canada cooking with one, claims Chip in The Compleat Walker IV. Chip himself now claims to camp largely solar--with backback solar charged batteries running his flashlights and his Sierra Stove.

The basic unit I got weighs 18 ounces and is clever and well-evolved. Accessory goodies can be found at the manufacturer's site. The newest item is a titanium version that weighs only 10 ounces, for $129.

I was impressed at how little fuel was needed, and how funky it could be. A switch offers high or low speed on the fan, driven by one AA battery. No igniter -- my Bic failed me in the rain, but a Lifeboat match and lil' firestarter saved the day. Unlike butane, the Sierra Stove does blacken your pots and pans, which is the main nuisance -- they go in Ziploc bags anyway though. All in all an impressive little rig.

We'll all want one when the economy collapses completely and we have to live homeless.

Sharpie markers are well-known for being indelible, particularly on plastic, glass and metal surfaces. Folks in labs, movie sets, and hospitals who need to mark things permanently use Sharpies. If the ink goes on, it won't come off. What's special here is that the other tip of these pens is an ultra-fine point Sharpie, fine enough to write like a ball-point pen - but permanently -- when you need to. The "industrial" version of Sharpie ink will even resist chemicals and scrubbing. Since more writing surfaces seem to be plastic-like, I find we use Sharpies all the time now.

I am convinced that the single most effective tool you can have on hand for an ABC disaster (Atomic, Biological, or Chemical) is a good face mask. The danger of nuclear radiation is primarily from fallout, which drifts as air-born particles. Same for many chemical spills; their poison also drifts on microscopic airborne droplets. And the biological toxins we most fear also travel in the air as particles. A face mask covering nose and mouth can reduce (not eliminate) the risk of inhaling these particles.

But face masks are useless unless worn, and are not worn (for long) if uncomfortable. I've been trying out various inexpensive masks that I could wear for many hours without going crazy. I found the Cool Max to be the only respirator I could keep on for long periods. The Cool Max [now called Cool Flow] are cheap N95 units (workshop, not surgical quality) that fold out and fit on the face with two elastic straps. The enlarged surface area eases breathing, and removes that suffocating sensation I usually get from wearing respirators. I could talk, drive, and work outside in the garden for hours without much discomfort. These masks are cheap enough that I have stocked a supply for our household (you'll need more than one).

Recently I attended a meeting for the world's avian flu experts and asked them how effective a face mask like Cool Max would be in an avian flu epidemic. (I had already learned that touching hands transmits more viruses between people than does sneezing; so it makes no sense to wear a mask without wearing gloves.) About half of the flu researchers believed a mask would not do anything at all (viruses are smaller than the filter pores), and the other half said that of course it would help since the viruses ride along on larger particles. When I asked them how many of them would personally have their families wear one in a flu pandemic, they almost all said they would. Although the efficacy of masks with viruses is unproven, there is no harm in using them, as long as you don't believe it guarantees anything.

My research came down to this: Better than hoarding Tamiflu, sequestering some face masks and disposable gloves is the cheapest, easiest and most productive thing you can do to prepare for a flu epidemic beforehand. Fancier, more sophisticated face masks would probably be more effective if you kept them clean and were willing to wear them. But I find it cumbersome to walk around with a gas mask. These Cool Max respirators will at least be worn for the durations needed, and will reduce your risk of inhaling ABC particles.

And, oh, they work really great keeping dust out, too!

Our guest this week is Tod E. Kurt. Tod runs ThingM, an IoT device studio in Pasadena. He is creator of the blink(1) USB notification light and BlinkM Smart LED. He co-founded CRASH Space, a Los Angeles hackerspace. He is the author of “Hacking Roomba” and long ago worked on cameras for Mars probes.

Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

Show notes:

Stickvise PCB Vise with Standard Nylon Jaws ($30)
“The main difference between this vise and other vises you might use to hold your work is that it maintains your work parallel to your desktop. And that's the other thing: it isn't attached to a surface. It just kind of sits on your desk. It's very small, and it's made for doing electronics work. But I've seen people use it for things like jewelry and other sort of small work where you're kind of on a desk and you need to have something that's held flat. And the reason why you need it to be held flat for electronics is because you don't want the parts to slide off as you're soldering them down. If you're doing surface mount work, it's just like things are just kind of sitting on top and then you have to solder them down."

Viltrox Super Slim LED Light Pane ($34)
"Anyone who has a work bench has had to try to solve the problem of how do you light up the space you're working in, and for me I've tried fluorescent light tubes, the standard long tubes. I've tried LED strip that I then stuck to a base and then had that. But they've all been a little fiddly, and it becomes hard to either adjust the brightness or adjust the color temperature, which I've really liked lately. A lot of lights now you can change if you want them to be a noon, like a bluish-white that you'd see during noonday, or a more orangey-yellow white, one you'd see during the evening. And now there's all these lights, all these LED-based lights out there, where you can have a knob to tune the color temperature. And this LED light panel, it's about maybe six inches on a side, and it's normally meant to be mounted on top of a camera for photography people to take pictures and to light their subject, but I found you can just mount it above your bench and it becomes a great task light.”

Koolertron 4.3" LCD Digital USB Microscope ($79)
"I stumbled across this little microscope, and it's perfect because it's super portable. I can just kind of drag it around wherever I need it, and I'll stick circuit boards that I'm looking at to see how the manufacturing of them went. When I'm soldering stuff, sometimes I'll stick the circuit board I'm working on underneath it to see it. And because it is fully-self-contained — it's a digital device, digital microscope, but it's got a screen built in, and the screen's good — I don't need a computer and have to look up at a computer all the time. I can just look at it. And so it's just brilliant."

Asus Chromebox2 ($170)
"Everyone's probably heard of Chromebooks. They're the little notebooks that run only Chrome, the browser. This is exactly that, but it looks kind of like a Mac mini. So you have to bring your own keyboard and mouse and screen to the game, but it's a lot cheaper. And so you plug in your mouse, keyboard — or as what I do, I've got a little combo mouse-keyboard thingy — and an old display, and suddenly you've got a working computer that's on the net. You can just log in with your Google account, and you've got a Chrome browser that just is on the net. You can watch YouTube. You can look at documentation. That's what I use it for. I have the schematics that I'm working against or maybe some educational videos that I'm following along with. I have that next to me. And because it's this little, tiny, cheap computer, I don't care if it gets a little dirty from being in the workshop.”

Also mentioned:

blink(1)
It’s a non-obtrusive notification light. You can hook it up to events on the Net you care about (“new mail”, “server down”, “it’s going to rain”).

We have hired professional editors to help create our weekly podcasts and video reviews. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $342 a month. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have great rewards for people who contribute! – MF

A nail puller like the ones reviewed in Cool Tools earlier (here and here) is not the best. It will gouge a quite horrible crater in your material unless the nail is at the surface, or just the right size. With this one, on the other hand, I can extract a headless nail from more than a centimeter inside a beam. The wood was not unscratched of course, but since it was compressed rather than splintered, a bit of water can make it swell back up somewhat.

Our guest this week is Talin. Talin is a “recovering game programmer” whose career spans 25 years, stretching from the early years of personal computing to more recent games like Sim City 4 and The Sims 2. He’s also a writer, artist, cosplayer, musician and web developer.

Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

Show notes:

Inkscape SVG editor
"It's a editor for SVG files, Scalable Vector Graphics, which is a web standard. You know most images are made out of pixels, little square blocks, but vector images are made out of lines and points and geometric shapes. That means they can be scaled up and scaled down without any loss of quality. All the major browsers support them, so SVG's very efficient. Most websites use SVGs for their icons now, because SVG is a web standard, it can be embedded in the web page directly, without having to do a separate download, which you would have to do with an image. That makes for much fewer network connections, so it's very efficient. … It's one of the most polished and professional opensource apps out there. It's better than GIMP in many ways, in terms of its overall level of quality of the user interface.”

ResMed AirSense CPAP machine
"I suffered from sleep apnea, like many people do, and I didn't know this until about 20 years ago and somebody told me, "Hey, by the way, do you know that you choke when you're sleeping?" Sleep apnea is essentially an extreme form of snoring, where your nasal passages get blocked up and you start to choke. ...This has all kinds of negative effects. It means you're tired all the time. You don't get enough sleep, and also because you're at a reduced oxygen level, it has other health impacts. So they recommended that I get a CPAP machine. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure. It's kind of like a miniature iron lung. It's basically a little mask that fits over your face and provides a gentle air pressure to inflate your nasal tissues, so that you get a clear airflow. It takes a little getting used to at first, but now that I've been using it for 10 years, I don't think I could sleep without it. Well, I can but it's actually more comfortable now, to be able to breathe freely when I'm lying down like that. … I've tried a couple ones, and the thing is, is that every one I get is better than the last, because the technology keeps improving. The machine I've got right now is about a year old. It's a ResMed AirSense. It's actually a BiPAP machine. Which means that it actually senses. It's got a computer system that senses that you're breathing, and that adjusts the pressure for your inhale and exhale, so that it's actually easier. You don't have to breathe against the pressure as you're breathing out."

Forbidden Desert Board Game
"First of all, I really like cooperative board games. I find winning is not that interesting. I like collaboration and cooperation. The thing I love about cooperative board games is that every turn becomes this kind of creative brainstorming session. … Forbidden Desert, it's a very interesting cooperative game. It has an interesting play mechanic, where the board is changing its configuration as you're playing. The desert consists of a bunch of tiles, and as you, each turn there's a new storm card that comes up, and it moves the storm around. Every time the storm moves, it shifts the tiles, and so as you're playing it's like you're playing on shifting sands. The goal of the game is you're working together to find all of the hidden pieces of the lost airship, so that you can escape the desert before you run out of water, because every time a sun-beats-down card comes up, you all lose one unit worth of water, and if you run out of water the game ends."

The Captain is Dead Board Game
"This is a great one. The Captain is Dead is kind of a parody of classic Star Trek. The basic premise is that you are all crewmen on a star-ship where the captain has died, and you're being attacked by aliens, and all these things are going wrong. Each crewman has a different role. There's a dozen different crewmen you can choose from, and usually have four or five players, each with a different role. It's like, the doctor, and the hologram, and the alien. There's even one that's called crewman, which wears a red shirt, and every time he dies he respawns on the bridge as a new character. Every turn there's a new disaster that you have to cope with, like the systems are going down, or you have a weird anomaly that's changing the crew behavior. A lot of it is trading resources. It's like, I'll have three engineering skill cards, and I'll use the communication system to give you three of my engineering skills so that next turn you can fix the warp core, and then you can use the teleporter to move me over to the armory so I can attack the aliens. It's a very challenging game.”

Also mentioned:

Wil Wheaton's TableTop

 
We have hired professional editors to help create our weekly podcasts and video reviews. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $331 a month. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have great rewards for people who contribute! – MF

For a long while I've been looking for an expert who could guide me through the complex world of typography. I didn't need another artsy typographical design book. I wanted a reliable friend who could introduce me to the philosophy of type and then also practically guide me through the jungle of fonts to ones that work best. Mr. Bringhurst is that guru. Under his apprentice I understood for the first time how to architecturally shape a page with text, as if I were building a house. I figured out when to kern, or not. Now I find myself drawn back to his study every time I need to craft a book, a webpage, or format a report. The wisdom and experience in this book is astounding. It's for anyone who makes words visible. That's all of us. The book is regularly updated. Blessings on Bringhurst.