A few summers ago I spent a week snorkling in the Bahamas. Descending underwater, I had an out-of-the-planet experience. Minute by minute I realized that I was encountering creatures whose general business in life I couldn't identify. How did they make their living? Animal, plant, or alien? I couldn't tell. Life is simply far stranger than we can imagine, and no where is that more evident than in the compressed diversity of a coral reef. I needed a Who's Who to introduce me to the characters of this underworld. The best beginner's orientation I found was in Peterson's Guide to Coral Reefs. It's fine for a start.

Then a diver tipped me off to Paul Humann's work. Working with 50 professional biologists, Humann has collected pictures and descriptions of Caribbean marine life into three color bursting field guides: Reef Fishes, Reef Creatures, and Reef Coral. These are working identification books used by divers, biologists and taxonomists themselves. (Comes in durable plastic protection cover; includes species life-check list.) Many of the species ID'd are little known. Most are weird. All are beautiful and wonderful. The guides contain a sufficient critical mass of species that you can be confident you actually saw what you think you saw.

The other way I use these: I sit late at night and page through them. My favorite is Reef Creatures, with back up by Reef Coral. I boggle at WHAT'S DOWN THERE. I read the bios. I swoon over the shocking images in full color. I stare. I re-read the bios. I feel holy, blessed.

Humann (and Peterson for that matter) covers the west Atlantic. There is no equivalent portable guide for waters in the rest of our ocean globe that I am aware of. Like Audabon's masterpiece of birds in North America it can be used and appreciated in other locals.
--KK

Reef Fish Identification (3rd Edition), 2002, $27, Amazon
Reef Creature Identification (2nd Edition) 2002, $40, Amazon
Reef Coral Identification (2nd Edition), 2002, $23, Amazon

Reef Set Boxed Set (3 volumes) $76
All by Paul Hamann and Ned Deloach
Amazon

CafePress is a way of setting up an online store for logo-imprinted merchandise very fast and for free. You can upload your own graphics and then just pick which products you want them printed on. (They also package custom music and data CDs.) They print everything on demand and host the online store for you and then you just say how much to mark up each item. You get to keep the profit as they sell the merchandise.

For an example of how quick this is, I set up this store in 15 minutes to sell gear displaying the logo of my team: http://www.cafeshops.com/inertialabs. Since everything is made on demand, anyone can order as few as just one copy of a product. This makes CafePress a convenient way to outfit a small group, or just yourself, with no up-front investment.

The only major limitation of their otherwise great service is that you can only print on white or light-colored fabrics. But hey, where else can you get a thong with your robot team logo on it?
-- Alexander Rose

CafePress

It is hard to image how the traditional kitchen peeler could be substantially improved. Remarkably the Oxo Peeler accomplishes this. Easier to use, vastly more comfortable for long stretches, sharper, and more productive. The Oxo Peeler continues to win awards in test kitchens. A superior tool; worth the few extra dollars.
--KK

OXO Good Grip Swivel Peeler
Catalog

$6
From, among others, Amazon

A German-made 14 speed all-internal gear hub for bikes. Most bike hubs use cogs. In theory you take a bit of an efficiency hit by using gears instead of cogs, but it turns that most bike's chains are not properly maintained nor in perfect alignment - which lowers their efficiency in practice. Thus the all-internal hub which always has perfect chain alignment and only requires a 1 oz. oil change per year in maintenance ends up being more efficient. You can also shift the full rage of gears while standing still or with pressure on the pedals. You also avoid the usual derailment, fragility, and chainsuck issues of a normal transmission (this is why many professional downhill riders are switching to them). It weighs a bit more than all the components it replaces in a traditional bike tranny but gives the bike an overall cleaner look. Also, since normal bike gears overlap their range this hub's 14 speeds is equivalent to 27 or more speeds of the traditional derailleur tranny. I have been riding mine now for a while and would never go back.
�Alexander Rose

SPEEDHUB 500/14 CC
Red powder coated (Item No. 8010)
$890
Harris Cyclery
617-244-9772

Most drugstores sell pathetically lousy tweezers. These are blunt, imprecise instruments suitable for plucking eyebrows, if that. They are useless for medical purposes. What you need is a needle-sharp, stainless steel, surgically precise tool that can remove the teeniest splinter from the smallest toe. What you want is a pair of Tweezermans. Their incredibly sharp points should be protected with a plastic cap. They are a joy to use; I don�t think I�ve failed to get what I was after since using them. Backpackers favor a compact medical tweezers called Uncle Bill�s. It does a fine job, although I prefer the longer handles of Tweezerman.

-- KK

Tweezerman SPA Splinter Tweezers
$14 from Amazon

Uncle Bill's Tweezers
$5.25
Available from Chinook Medical Gear
800-766-1365
970-375-1241

Also from Amazon

A mail order supplier of dazzlingly hardy plants (mostly perennials) adapted to west of the Rockies. They specialize in drought resistance (xeric) varieties, which of course can be established in non-desert areas. Unlike many mail order outfits, they don�t deal in seed, but in young seedlings. Although more expensive per plant, I've come to seek out seedlings as the way to plant flowers and shrubs. They seem to take off faster than both seeds or potted plants. Specimens arrive live in minimal (lightweight) but remarkably adequate packaging. I've experienced very low failure rates, and good growth rates.
�KK

High Country Gardens
Plants for the Western Garden
800-925-9387

The premise of this first reality-TV program is brilliant. Take an ordinary middle class family of the year 2000 and make them live for 6 months like an ordinary middle class family of the year 1900. The London-based producers succeed in this transformation by getting every detail of Victorian domestic life exactly right and complete. The volunteer family is plunked down in a different era as if by time machine, and there is no escape. No shampoo, either. The edited 6-hour result is deep, instructive, and totally riveting, Kids who hate history are mesmerized by it. Because it is so visual and visceral, it changed the discussion of chores and gender roles in our household. Better than 100 essays, this video series reveals the notion of progress. It is now my favorite history "book."

The success of 1900 House spawned Frontier House, a parallel experiment that transfers the conceit to the edge of Montana in 1893 during homesteading days. It ups the challenge by requiring the participants to build their homesteads and raise all their own food while sticking to period tools and the lifestyle of pioneers. The three families who settle in a beautiful valley need to stockpile enough food, shelter and firewood to last a Montanan winter. Instead of cooperating, they compete against each other, making this remarkable 6 hours series into what Survivor should have been - an authentic test of surviving. There is probably no greater persuader of women's inequality than this pair of films. The guys loved being pioneers, while the women and girls were imprisoned by it.

Both series come with books you can forget. The documentaries on the other hand are memorable and entertaining works that would be fantastic in any classroom, and ones that I would require every child in 21st century America to view. If I had to choose only one to see, I'd go with Frontier House. There's more going on, more intra-personal weirdness, more learning and more failures. Best would be witnessing both, as the London Victorian house closer reflects what the majority back then experienced. These are the nearest things yet to a time machine.
�KK

1900 House
$27 VHS
Amazon
Netflix

1900 House
Mark McCrum and Matthew Sturgis
1999, 192 pages
$20
Macmillan

Frontier House
$50 VHS or DVD
Amazon
Netflix

Someone from Europe posted me a letter and I fell in love with the text's unusual font. It turned out to be Scala Sans, a font created ten years ago by a Dutch typographer, Martin Majoor. I bought a copy of the typeface on MyFonts and now use it everywhere I can - except on the web, where typography is still in the dark ages.

It wasn't too long ago that only about 271 people in the world cared about typographic fonts and kerning and serif trapping. Then PCs turned typography from a black art into a tool for the masses. Getting and installing a particularly distinctive font is a no-brainer on the web, and yes, one can learn to use it with grace. (See The Elements of Typographical Style elsewhere on this site).

The best portal into the world of typography is the website My Fonts. They have over 23,000 fonts from just about every known foundry (many just one person shops), and a pretty good way to navigate among all those choices. Their "more fonts like this one" option is helpful. With a forum for newbies the site is very friendly to those just starting out and for pros, too.

There is one small weirdness about type that is worth pointing out. The differences between two fonts may be hardly noticeable in their details, although the effect of each font is pronounced. It's a lot like wine; it's hard to describe why good ones are good. If you find a typeface in a magazine or brochure that you really like it can be extremely difficult to identify that face by name. There is no working heuristic for identifying fonts. You may be forced to ask a type maven, if you know one. Or, you can try a new service of My Font called WhatTheFont? Scan your typeface and submit it to the site; it will identify it.

--KK

MyFonts

The Tiltall is a classic; it's been around for at least 40 years. Luckily, they didn't change much over the years, other than it is newly available in a non-reflecting black. Made of aluminum, it's impervious to rust and the weather. The Tiltall's tubular legs are incredibly sturdy, and the simple locking mechanisms secure over time. Unlike most other tripods I've used it doesn't ever wiggle. Like its name implies, it can easily tilt in any direction (most tripods can't). It is not the lightest tripod, but it is utterly reliable and will last as long as you will.

Tripods are good for supporting all kinds of apparatus besides cameras. They can hold anything you need to remain steady at weird angles or heights. I attach a plastic platform to its standard 1/4 bolt on top which means I have an adjustable stand for a projector and other equipment like lights, shades, telescopes, and so forth.

-- KK

Tiltall Tripod
$100
From among others, Amazon

You would think that natural dyed, hand spun, hand-woven carpets from villages in the Mid-East and Asia have disappeared with the caravans, but you'd be wrong. Like the revival of other gourmet goods around the world, traditionally made carpets are in a renaissance. Some experts feel that these contemporary wool carpets exceed the quality of the classic old ones, which command classic antique prices (hundreds of thousands of dollars). At the moment, the new, better ones are far more affordable (and yes, this book deals with the issue of child labor). Fueling the revival of these traditional ways are improved methods of natural dying, and a better market mechanism. You can order some carpets directly on the internet, which passes more money to the weavers. A good hand-woven carpet can last many generations and be used every day. This is art you use -- you touch, sit and walk on it. For an overview of the rejuvenation of this wonderfully gorgeous yet utilitarian craft go to this book. It's the best guide on where they are weaving, what they are making, and where to get them.
--KK

Oriental Rugs Today
Emmett Eiland
2000, 199 pages
$13
Amazon

I just bought four pair of some nifty Celestron 8x21s that Anacortes is selling for an incredible $12 each! They are compact and very light weight. The eye relief is great, and while they ain't Swarovskis, they do the job just fine. And best of all, I don't worry about losing them or getting them scratched. My advice is to buy a bunch and keep them in every car, backpack, etc.

--Paul Saffo

I did just what Paul Saffo suggested. I got me a couple of these. They are small mini-binocs about 6 inches square -- the size of your palm. They are as sharp as my other mid-price pairs, but much handier. I really like them. And for $12 (as long as the bargain runs*) they are unbeatable.

--KK

Celestron Mini 8x21 Binoculars
$13
*Now available from Optics Planet

Inadvertently they've become my all-purpose boots---work boots, hiking boots, running boots, bushwhacking boots, ford-two-miles-up-the-creek boots.

I originally got them on a whim to check out the special boots used for Navy SEALs training, where the trainees run in the surf with them, then run in deep sand and on pavement, wear them on the obstacle course and then on the calisthenics asphalt, for three months of 20-hour days. Even in hot San Diego the boots are worn with heavy wool/cotton socks, their tops cleverly turned down to protect the boot lace ties.

The Bates 924 is basically the Army tropical boot. It makes no attempt at waterproofness but (like softshell jackets) arranges things so you don't care if your feet are soaked. There are little weep holes with fine mesh screen near the instep for water to run out. Most of the upper part of the boot is Cordura. The shock-absorbing insole comes out handily to ease drying. The boots are thus VERY light---each of my size 12s is only 24.5 ounces. (An equivalent lightweight Danner Cordura boot with GoreTex is 10 ounces heavier.)

The most spectacular feature using the boots is INSTANT lacing---one tug and you're good to go. No other laced footwear has a fraction of this convenience. Consequently it's a breeze to do the important chore of taking your boots off every hour or so to refresh your feet and head off blisters. The thick socks also help protect your feet yet are surprisingly comfortable in hot weather. Unlike most boots now, the Bates 924s have very firm and snug heel cups (that's what protects your ankles). The 8-inch tops shield your socks from burrs and ankles from scrapes.

The easiest place to get the boots is a SEAL pre-training source on the Web, GetFitNow.com. At $80 the boots are inexpensive enough you don't worry about trashing them. The GetFitNow site also has the excellent heavy white SEAL socks ($6), though I find that Mountaineer Socks from Smartwool (of course) feel even better. (GetFitNow also features SEAL training books and tapes. To see the whole line of Bates uniform footwear, check the Bates site.)

-- Stewart Brand

Bates 924 Boots
$100 streetprice
Yahoo Shopping

Navy SEAL Dive Socks
$6
Yahoo Shopping

SmartWool Socks
$20
REI
Also previously available from Amazon

Bates Footware

*

If you're as interested as I was in the full legend of the selection pressure of SEAL BUD/S training that made these boots great, you'll enjoy THE WARRIOR ELITE: The Forging of Seal Class 228, by ex-SEAL Captain Dick Couch (2001).
Amazon

Larry Gonick, the over-educated cartoonist, continues his series of book-length comic-strips that illustrate ancient history. This new 300-page installment covers the rise of Arabia and the role of "Orientals" in crafting the culture we have today. In Gonick's hands history is a hoot, and very much about ideas. I particularly savor this latest volume because by moving the center of the universe somewhere east of Europe -- delving into Islam, Africa and East Asia -- Gonick's cartoons can remedy the ignorance and arrogance of the west. Laugh your way to enlightenment!

--KK

Cartoon History of the Universe III
Larry Gonick
2002, 307 pages
$15
Amazon

The Picquic Sixpac may be the last multi-bit screwdriver I'll ever need to buy, but it wasn't the first. I've gone through a dozen less successful attempts at this kind of tool, always losing at least half the bits in the first month or so of use. When I try to use the few bits I haven't lost, they invariably fall out of the bitholder, which weakens over time.

The Picquic Sixpac fixes both problems. Each bit is stored in a separate compartment in the screwdriver handle. You remove the bit you need by pushing it out of the handle with the bit you are finished with. Since there's no other easy way to get at the bit you need, you always put bits away as you finish with them. I've had mine for three years and it still has all its bits!

Additional features include a solid, spring-lock bitholder that holds as tightly now as it did the day I bought it, and a stainless steel shank that has stood up to everything I've thrown at it. It comes with six bits: two flathead, three Phillips head, and one Torx T15. Other bits are available in Bitpacs from Picquic.

-- James Home

Picquic Sixpac
$15
Available from Westlake Electronic

Manufactured by
Picquic

Travel underwear. These very lightweight, super quick-drying, comfortable briefs are made of a blended material with a new finish that is unusually resistant to the growth of bacteria. You wash them in cold water in your hotel room at night and they are dry before morning. In a pinch, they can be dry in a couple hours if you roll them in a towel and squeeze the water out before you hang them up. I reused one pair of underwear three times on a recent trip.

--Howard Rheingold

Exofficio Underpants for Men
$18
Also available from Amazon

Exofficio Underpants for Women
$10
Also available from Amazon

Since discovering scooters a few years ago, I seldom walk on my weekly trips into San Francisco. I park my truck and grab the scooter out of the back. It's about 3 times as fast as walking, it's good exercise and IT'S FUN! When I go to a popular neighborhood where it's hard to park, I'll park about 8 blocks away and scooter in. No sweat! When I arrive at my destination I fold it up.

I recently went to NYC and the first thing I did that evening was to set off from my hotel (at the Mayflower, on the southwest corner of Central park) to the Upper West Side, down Amsterdam and Columbus. I had fun, saw the sights and before I knew it I was up to 101st. A few days later on a deserted Sunday morning I rode from the Mayflower three miles down to the Jacob Javits Center on the Hudson, then scootered back uptown that afternoon.

These days I ride this beautifully designed K-2 high-tech-wheel scooter. The two wheels in front give you a lot more stability. It rides over cracks in the pavement where a one-wheeler would dump you. Like other scooters, you depress the rear wheel guard to brake; unlike other scooters, the deck tilts when you turn. The K-2 is hinged ingeniously on the front wheel assembly, where the wheels cant in the direction of the turn. Springs on the front axle pull the scooter back to straight-forward direction after a turn. There's only one wheel in the back because that's all you need. The joy stick (as opposed to handle bars) takes a bit of getting used to; right hand on knob when right foot is forward on the deck, left hand-likewise.

Riding a scooter is a great way to move around in a city, but you have to be careful! People (and cars!) don't expect a human body to be coming along that fast, so you have to be constantly monitoring and alert. Any scooterer's (or cyclist's) nightmare is a parked car's door being opened just as you get there. Oh yes, when you ride long distances you will find that the leg on the deck gets tired (it's holding all your weight), so it pays to get proficient at switching the forward foot every block or so.

�Lloyd Kahn

K2 Kickboard 3-Wheel Folding Kick Scooter
Item #295889
$170
The Sports Authority

This is the scale plastic stock and model parts catalog used by architects, scratch-build modelers, railroad hobbyists and other miniature makers. They have EVERYTHING at various mini scales: I-beams, T-beams, H-beams, tubing, tiny plumbing fittings, stone and brick-patterned sheets, plastic sheet stock in every size, color and thickness. The next time you watch a sci-fi film and see a far-away shot of, say a mining colony on a lonely asteroid, you're probably actually looking at a big chunk of the Plastruct product line. Their website is abominable; get their paper catalog.

-- Gareth Branwyn

Plastruct
Catalog, $5
626-912-7016
800-666-7015

To avoid gluing your model to your work surface, especially when working with a fast acting solvent cement like Bondene, we recommend you do all cementing on a sheet of polypropylene. Even better, purchase a few serving trays (cafeteria style) and cut the polypropylene sheet to snugly fit inside. This way, the sides will capture any spilled solvent cement before it spoils furniture, and you can use different trays for different in-progress projects

What a lifesaver! When the electrical power suddenly vaporizes, the files you were working don't disappear. This reasonably priced unit gives you 6 to 17 minutes to close down your computer, depending on the size of your equipment. That's plenty of time to get through an orderly shutdown. In sleep mode my Mac G3 and 21 inch monitor once lasted 5 hours during a blackout when I was away. Brands of gear seem pretty interchangeable. The one I use, the APC Battery Backup 500VA, also has surge protection for the phone or cable modem line. The price of a battery backup, or Uninterrupted Power Supply (USP) as it is called technically, has dropped sufficiently so that every computer should have one. (Except laptops, which have their own built in supply.) Where power is especially unreliable, or where you want to power printers as well, you can buy more capacity.

-- KK

APC Battery Backup 500VA
$55
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by American Power Conversion (APC)
Model info: Back-UPS ES 500
Part #: BE500U
877-272-2722

The elemental unit of human experience is the story. Yet few people know how a story works, or why, or how to make a good story. When I began this book I thought it was a manual for Hollywood screenwriters, which it is. There are scores of other books in the genre, but ignore them. Professional screenwriters all swear by McKee's Story as the key guide to creating a story that works. Halfway through this book, it altered me as an audience; I was watching and reading differently. By the end, I realized that this was actually a book about living. Constructing a story that works is similar to constructing a life that works. For people trying to write a story, for people listening to a story, for people trying to compose an interesting life, this is a profoundly important guide. I find it worth rereading every couple of years.

I recommend using the four-cassette audio version of this book for several reasons. One, it is abridged, and improved by that, and two, you get more a sense of storytelling by listening, rather than reading, and three, the author delivers his message in his own strong voice, which in this case conveys his passion and intelligence more than his words alone do.

Story
Robert McKee
1997, 466 pages
$35
Regan Books
Amazon

My friend has built several of these. It's art you use. Take clay dirt, water, and imagination. If you make a mistake, you just smash it and start over. Many in the world still bake their bread in these.

Build Your Own Earth Oven
Kido Denzer
2001, 113 pages
$15
Amazon

A wonder of our globalized economy:

As everyone knows, DVD players are sold encoded to a particular region to block imported DVDs from playing. However the *cheapest* DVD players are manufactured for low-price sales world-wide, and are thus engineered with (a) easily re-programmable regional coding (only one unit to make) and (b) chips that convert PAL signals (a system used over much of the world) to NTSC signals (a system used primarily in the United States and Japan).

The CyberHome CH-DVD 500 progressive scan DVD player (available at Amazon, Target, and elsewhere) is sold for about $80. Among other machines, it can be easily reprogrammed using the remote in accordance with instructions accessible to the Google-literate. You can then watch any DVD manufactured anywhere in the world at home.

CyberHome CH-DVD 500 Progressive Scan DVD Player
$80
Amazon

There are many sources for international DVDs, including the national Amazon sites - Japan, France, UK, Germany - as well as CDJapan.com, and yesasia.com., among others. A very large proportion of the titles are digitally subtitled in English, and usually indicated as such on the sites.

What can you get? Depends on what you like: British television comedies and drama, uncut and uninterrupted, years before local release if ever; Japanese animation and the new wave of Japanese horror films; the massive (ten films a month) restoration and release of the Shaw Bros. film and television library from Hong Kong; classic releases of Bergman films from Artificial Eye in London (Fanny and Alexander uncut); French noir from the fifties and sixties, and on and on. The best place I know of for international DVD obsessives is called dvdtalk.com. The international forum, which has tons of shopping information and stuff about individual releases ("Von Trier's Kingdom with subtitles out in Denmark on August 1!": that sort of thing) is nerd-out.com. Here is the URL for the CyberHome hack specifically.

-- Dennis Dort

New on the market, the Metallic Sharpie is a vast improvement over other metallic pens out there -- no shaking the pen before use, and the ink doesn't puddle up. It dries permanent and shows up great on dark
surfaces as well as light ones. It became favorite art tool in my arsenal when I was able to write a friends phone number on a freshly opened, ice-cold beer bottle. Seconds after jotting the number, it was indelible. I try to take it everywhere -- it's good for men's room graffiti, VHS tapes, I even labeled various keys on my key ring. You can get metallic sharpies at Staples or Office Max.
--Chris Sperandio

There's almost no other way to easily write on slippery surfaces. The metallic sharpie uses silver ink, which has remarkable contrast against both light and dark surfaces. For writing on black plastic or enamel (there is more of it around than you think) nothing else will do.
--KK

Metallic Sharpie
$3
(2 pk.)
From Amazon, or where pens are sold

It's no secret that fish stocks of many species have been over-harvested to the point of extinction, but whenever I'm ordering fish at a restaurant I can't remember what's good fish and what's bad fish. I now rely on this very handy business-sized card which lives in my wallet; I yank it out with the menu. Tells me which fish species to avoid (severely overfished), which are okay, and which are borderline. You can get these cards at some aquariums and zoos or download the most up-to-date PDF file and print your own.

-- KK

Seafood Watch
Free download from

Monterey Bay Aquarium

What a rare gem: a how-to book that changed my mind. Or at least my hearing. Audio recordist Bernie Krause has captured the sounds of ants eating, of sand dunes shifting, of frogs croaking in duets with airplanes, and the winds sweeping over prairie grass. This subtle yet omnipresent universe of natural sound was something I had mostly ignored. Krause's practical guide is a fantastic re-education. Using a tiny digital recorder (see review of the Olympus Digital Voice Recorder) as my new ears, under his guidance nature is reborn into ever-changing radio-stations of novel sounds. His how-to advice is among the best how-to I've read; smart, specific, just the right level of detail and backed by 30 years of doing it. Since sounds often trigger more memories than snapshots, recording soundspaces should be as easy and satisfying as photography, and with Krauses' advice it is. His book is dense with sonic adventures in the wild, and a 55-minute trophy CD. It's the ultimate guide: every page compels you to get up and do it. See with your ears!

Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World
Bernie Krause
2002, 168 pages, with CD
$14
Amazon

For years professional bakers have baked their goods on inert silicone-impregnated mats. These simple, inexpensive oven-proof non-stick sheets slide into baking trays and are now quite common in baking households like ours. Instead of consuming rolls of aluminum foil or parchment paper, you lay everything out on these reusable durable mats, and bake; the nicely browned goods slide off with no effort and no added grease. Less burn on the bottom, too. Multiple mats can feed one expensive baking tray for serious cookie production. Clean-up is a simple rinse. As an added bonus they make great kneading boards. The mats roll up for easy storage. We've used several of the five brands available; so far they all seem similar. Silpat was the original, but SiliconeZone is the least expensive I've seen.

SiliconeZone Standard Baking Mat
11 x 16"
$15
Amazon