f7d9395c_atings_and_reviews___Gwern_net__Review
[Title] Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities [Author] Kevin Kelly [Rating] ★★★★ [Year] 2013 [Read] 2014/01/01 [Review] 
Big heavy book compiling the best of the Cool Tools website/email-list, which is similar to Edmund’s Scientific Catalog; curious mix of cutting-edge Silicon Valley material, hobbies (hiking and travel especially), DIY/Maker, primitivist fetishism, and New Age stuff (yes, including the obligatory Rosicrucians) - very Californian, in other words. You might think reading a giant catalogue of stuff you’ll never buy would be boring, but it’s not. While it can’t be updated and it’s hard to follow links, the book format is much nicer for browsing & reading than the website because one can instantly shift from item to item without any overhead or action (the colored backgrounds initially seem like a mess but work well for separating entries without using up any space), On the downside, the reviews often heavily edited down from the Internet versions to save space (even with all the tiny fonts and edits, it’s still huge), occasionally out of date (eg Zeo sleep monitors - I love mine to death, but since the company shuttered ~2013, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone), and has a lot of typos. Offhand, things I’ve actually started using or bought thanks to CT (book or list): trackballs, LastPass, the “oblique strategies”, bidets for toilets. Oddly, I’ve benefited most from the media recommendations, particularly the nonfiction; thanks to CT, I’ve watched: Man on Wire, The Cove, Helvetica, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, March of the Penguins, Project Nim, The King of Kong, A State of Mind, & Dead Birds; and read the books: Finite and Infinite Games, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Fadiman’s Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide, Tufte’s Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Chased by the Light, Letters from a Stoic, A Pattern Language, How Buildings Learn, & Peopleware. Conflict of interest: I was a contributor and got a free copy because I wrote the review of the Compact OED.
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