Kevin Kelly's Blog, page 5

The Shape of Life

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]

The Klutz Book of Knots

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.

Pocket WiFi/Parrot Teleprompter/Do nothing

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

ContactOut/Trusty pen/VC reading list

Email finder

I use LinkedIn to get in touch with people for stories and interviews, but I don’t like using the built in messaging service (InMail). I’d rather email the person, but LinkedIn doesn’t provide email addresses (they want you to do everything in the confines of their walled garden). I use a Chrome extension called ContactOut which provides a pop-up with the person’s email address. It hasn’t failed me yet. — MF

Trusty pen

Every now and then I try out a new pen but I keep returning to my trusty Pilot G2 Gel pens. Smooth, fine, dark, cheap to lose, pocketable. YMMV, but they are perfect for me. — KK

Who I am reading

When people ask me who I am paying attention to these days, my surprise answer is: VCs who write. I have little interest in finance, investments, or even in business in general, but today’s VCs have the right combination of idealized high overview and grounded detailed realism. I am following Benedict Evans, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Paul Graham for the big views. — KK

Cheap but good kitchen knife

This $16 8-inch Winco knife is the first knife I reach for when preparing food. It sharpens well, holds an edge, and is heavy. Read the Amazon reviews to learn how many people swear by this workhorse kitchen tool. — MF

Better than ever hiking app

I’ve had the AllTrails app for 4+ years now, but I’ve been using it more often since I moved from SF to San Jose. I needed to find local hiking routes and I love that I’m able to filter by elevation and distance, and route type (e.g., loop, out & back, point to point). Since it’s been around for a while now, there are a lot of reviews for each hike and that’s really helpful because I like to avoid any trails where I might run into a mountain cat. — CD

Proofreading hack

Sometimes my eyes deceive me when proofreading. I came across this blog post and now I’ve been double-checking long paragraphs by right clicking on them (using Chrome) and selecting Speech > Start Speaking. If it sounds off, it usually means I dropped a word. — CD

Shop Cool Tools Scam

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.

Mr. McGroovy’s Box Rivets

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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.

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Tangoes

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.

The Mind Map Book

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.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

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.

Spray Adhesive

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.