Books We Can Use: Cool Tools

COOL TOOLS: A Catalog of Possibilities by Kevin Kelly (paperback, $39.95, $30.30 on Amazon). Our nomination for Book of the Year.

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   Will home inspectors start checking roofs with camera-carrying drones this year? 

     It’s an exciting possibility. Maybe. It’s like Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos talking last month about delivering Amazon orders by drones, maybe. Maybe it’s the future. But everyone who has ever worked on a house or a car knows what a difference having the right tool makes.
     For a Cinerama wide-screen Extreme digital portal on the future of real world tools you can put in your hand today, nothing tops Cool Tools. If it is useful, it’s got a home here, whether it’s a hand tool or electronic or a digital one.

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     Not since the Whole Earth Catalog (1968) has a wild and wooly bunch pulled together such an eclectic, eye-opening, wide-ranging, mind expanding handbook that doubles as an expressway to new ideas and possibilities. Both are part catalog, part encyclopedia, and part mental aerobics, built on “self-empowerment,” with a cutting edge sensibility. Unlike the Whole Earth Catalog, which was dense with terrific books, the focus here is tools you can use, with your own hands, more in the real world than in your head. (On the other hand, the cover of Whole Earth Catalog was the landmark first photo of the whole Earth, from a satellite.)
     We’ve been waiting decades for someone to redo the Whole Earth Catalog, just as we were on hold for about a century until it dragged the Sears catalog – a 1890s game changer for farmers stuck with small, pricey general stores – by its gummy spine into the Revolution. For those not around in the ‘60s, Whole Earth Catalog was a mind boggling, knock-your-socks-off newsprint paperback of every good idea under the sun found by Stewart Brand, leader of the pack of far out thinkers. At last, it’s here.
     It’s a worthwhile read even if you never thought you needed a new tool. As a sample of its range, cool “tools” include homes – from generators to foraging and mushrooms; real estate – from renovation to novelty housing like log cabins and domes (“domes,” not drones); construction materials; vehicles – from cars to changing oil; workshops – from screwdrivers and plumbing to sewing & knitting; clothing – from winter boots to gloves and sandals; kitchens – from stoves and ovens to juicing, winemaking and coffee; small business – from self-employment and startups to small offices, photography, and math tools; and even a guide to the best review sites. There’s even a portable moonshine maker. What there is not is bad raps – no critiques of junk or bunk, no teasers or come-ons, just stuff that works.

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 Even the way this book got built is cool. See it as Back to the Future in reverse, if the opposite of “throwback” is “throwforward.” Think of it as a slick stainless steel gull-wing DeLorean smokin’ back to print from web blogs stitched together by an expert editor. In fact, it turns out the lead compiler is Kevin Kelly, who got his first job editing Whole Earth Catalog follow-ups way back then (in 1984), helped found and edit Wired magazine, and wrote some other books, like What Technology Wants. (Kelly’s favorite tool is s a cordless portable band saw “that’s amazing – and yet no one knows about it!”)
     The whole thing started at home, making a tool box for his kids. Which screwed up. So Kelly launched a tool blog back in 2003. “It was the Whole Earth Catalog on the web, where it belonged,” he says. Now, a decade later, he burns the blog to print in this 4.5 lb. printed book bursting with 1,500 reviews. “There is something about having that large expanse of real estate in your lap, something about the format, that is extremely satisfying,” Kelly said. “Having many different things you may be interested in on a page, as opposed to a single thing surrounded by ads as it is on the web, leads to the formation of different connections and leads to a different experience.” He got that right. You get ideas from books, not ads– and facts, not pitches or promos. Read Kelly’s interview at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/business/2014-is-looking-a-lot-like-2013.html.
But isn’t everything nearly obsolete by the time it’s printed? Sure, just like a phone is out of date and a computer is history by the time you buy it. Everything’s got an expiration date, including us. The real questions are: “Where’s the best place to start looking?” and “What links do I get?” and “Does it save me time?” The answers are: Here, You won’t believe the answer, and Yes. Here’s the map. In your hands.
     If you hanker for one of the cool tools, there’s a QR code that lets you scan and buy it from your mobile phone on Amazon. There also are updates to the web site, http://kk.org/cooltools/, and a related the twitter site, @cool_tools, which is not quite so cool.
     Nobody needs all of this but every one of us can use more than a few parts of it. Still, every tool changes what is possible. Here’s an awesome place to explore where that could take you.
     And drones? Kelly is cool with them – as long as they’re not armed.

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