>I may be a marketer by trade, but I am curious by nature. I am also surrounded by beloved friends and family – engineers and gadget geeks all – who intuitively understand how things work much better than I ever will. So, I use Cool Tools to keep up with all things useful and ingenious, inexpensive and opulent, simple and complex. I use the site to surprise the geeks in my life with presents that help muddy the waters about how cool I actually am.
Kevin Kelly, the site’s guru, co-founded the Hackers’ Conference, and, unlike me, he is inarguably cool and eclectic. He has been affiliated with Wired magazine since its inception, was with the Well back in the day, and sits on a variety of boards, including The Long Now Foundation, which seeks to take a long view of history. In that pursuit, it has purchased a mountain top in Nevada to house a 10,000 year library and clock.
On Cool Tools, he finds and reviews (or posts reviews others have authored) about an amazing array of useful stuff ranging from simple screwdrivers and the latest incarnation of Sculpey sculpture clay to the best explanation of relativity and a guide on building an underground dwelling for $50 and up. Eclectic? You bet’cha. Useful? Indisputably. A nice place to get lost for a few hours and emerge with gifts for curious and outdoorsy friends and family – and a few new interests to explore yourself? I highly recommend it.