Sunday, November 6, 2011

Three minimalist things that should be more popular than they are...

Spork. I don't know why a titanium spork is such a fun thing to own but it is.
Maybe it is because what you have is the idealized form of a piece of technology, the derivation of one of human's oldest tools. In this iteration the spork is as tough as steel, light, non-toxic, manages hot food without a problem, scoops up yogurt, soup, stew. Heck, you could dig an escape tunnel with it. Did I mention it is made out of the same material as the SR-71?

Zippo. When the hardcore dick is interviewing the busty blonde for an exciting case, he lights his filterless Lucky Strike with a Zippo. Of course, if eating utensils are old, fire is human's oldest tool. What better way to get that campfire going, or light the Molotov to toss at the surging zombie hordes, than a shiny cool lighter. Bonus: learn some tricks.


Esperanto. Ok, this isn't a "thing" per se, but a language. Well, an invented language. In 1887 a linguist named Zamenhof came up with the idea that humanity should all speak a common tongue, and from his efforts was born Esperanto (his first impetus was to revive Latin, but nobody was keen on that). While there are many people who study and practice Esperanto, my guess is, there are more speakers of Klingon.

2 comments:

  1. It was interesting to see the mention of Esperanto here, and I'm surprised that no one has followed up your provocative comment about Klingon. I estimate that there are 10,000 Esperanto speakers for every person who has learned a bit of Klingon. Your readers may gain from tyour text the idea that Esperanto is something historical or experimental. In fact this planned second language is spoken by a growing population of people across the world. A good place to look is http://www.lernu.net

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  2. Uodate -- I saw this, and may add to my 'kit'. What do you think? http://store.kaufmann-mercantile.com/collections/tools-outdoors/products/edc-kit

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