Why everyone needs a weaponized spatula

In the latest episode of the Cool Tools Show podcast, Kevin Kelly and I interviewed Andrew Leonard about some of his favorite tools.

Andrew Leonard is a journalist who writes features for San Francisco magazine, Men’s Journal, Rolling Stone and other outlets. He previously wrote for Salon.com between 1995 and 2014 where he covered technology, business, Internet culture, science fiction, and economics, among other topics.

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Show Notes:

Wok

Wok Chuan (Spatula), $(removed)

"I think the best way to describe it is as a weaponized spatula … it is what happens when you spend three thousand years stir frying in a wok and you evolve the perfect tool for that activity … You hold the wok with one hand, and you hold this with the other and it just feels like you're doing something that people have been doing for millennia."


Garmin

Garmin Edge 510 GPS Bike Computer, $(removed)

"There's an intersection between geek and serious cyclist that has everything to do with the data. People want to know how many miles they've done, what their average mile per hour is, how many feet they've climbed, what the gradient is that they're currently going up … I think the Garmin computer really captures this."


Tao Te ching

Dao De Jing, "The Way and Its Power," $(removed)

"This is the classic Taoist work supposedly written by a guy named Lao Tzu in maybe the fifth century BC … I have seven translations because that to me is in tune with that first line, "The way that can be spoken is not the true way." Everybody comes up with different translations. Every time I dip in, there's a different way of hearing it expressed a little bit, like the different take."


reporters_notebook precise_v5

Reporter's Notebook, $(removed) and Pilot Precise V5, $(removed)

"There's just something about writing it down in hand and then crossing it out when it's done that encourages me to actually get it done. It's just a basic psychological thing. It seems like the old writing by hand on paper makes it more meaningful than a digital, virtual to-do list and it works for me."