Top 10 Tools

Humans.  We are part of the planet and yet we set ourselves apart.  how?  We have a brain capable of advanced abstract thought.  Are we unique in that respect?  Mostly.  There are probably some other animals that have some kind of thought process similar to that of our own.  Oooh  how about those opposable thumbs?  Yeah lots of primates have them.  On their toes even.  With both a fairly big brain (though our TV programming might make me second guess that) AND opposable thumbs we can conquer the world.  How?  Through the use of the tools we create.  I list for you now the 10 tools I like the most.

10.  Lever - Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I'll move the world.  Archimedes had it right, the lever of course the simplest of machines, the lever is something we figure out before we figure out language or Angry Birds or anything.  We use it to lift and shift things that are too heavy for us to manipulate directly.  You don't like the lever?  Try its modern day equivalent the crow bar.  Yay Lever!

9.  Pulley - The pulley or more specifically, block and tackle.  The ability we have gained through some rope and some wheels are really amazing.  We can lift things in the air that no one man could lift ever.  A person can lift many times their weight thanks to this little invention.  Thanks to this device, we were able to navigate the oceans and build great structures.  Just a rope and some wheels.

8.  Vice Grips - Why is this on the list instead of pliers or scissors?  Because I love vice grips.  They are my go to household tool of choice.  A locking pliers, vice grips have so many uses and utilizations that I think no home should be without several.

7.  Fire - Fire is an element not a tool.  I know I know.  Yet we use fire as a tool all the time.  Thanks to fire we have cooked food, tempered metals, smelted ores.  We control heat and use it as a tool to create the other tools that create our physical civilization.

6.  Corporate tool - This is an individual that has sold himself and his opinions to a large corporation or business concern.  They have no motivation except self promotion and attempt that through corporate promotion.  Often the corporate tool gains their lively-hood from the corporation they serve, but not necessarily.  Sometimes they represent an entire industry and are a sunshiny spokesperson ready to defend to the business death the industry they find so important.  Individuals are of little consequence to corporate tools.

5.  Screw Driver - In our modern day society 90% of all the fasteners used are screws.  As a result the screwdriver is the tool we probably have more of than any other in the house.  The problem with the screwdriver is the head.  The Philips head and the flat head are the most commonly known.  There are other drive heads that adorn the lowly screw such as the hex, star, and square head.  The Philips is also sometimes misnamed as an imposter to it's doppelganger the Frearson.  They look the same with a cross on top of the screw that does not continue to the edge of the screw.  But the Phillips has rounded corners inside the cross.  This is to allow the screwdriver to pop out with enough torque.  The Frearson has squared edges that allow the driver to hold no matter the angular pressure to the screw head.

4.  Magnetism - Another elemental force, Magnetism is a force that determines much of our life on the earth.  Without it, we lack a lot of control of electricity.  Natural magnets are the closest things we have to real magic on earth.  They were often called the lode stone because all of the sudden, all of your ferrous metals became much heavier towards the magnetic stone.  Now Magnets are required for nearly every modern convenience we have.  You may not use it every day as a tool, and yet every day it's properties are used on your behalf.

3.  Knife - Early on, there weren't a lot of tools, because we had to invent them.  Since we were hunters we needed to invent knives.  The knife was a universal hunting tool much as it is today.  A sometimes weapon, a knife was indispensable for maximizing the separation of meat from bone and skin.  Attached to a pole, the knife becomes a spear.  The knife might be the most essential and clever tool early man devised.

2.  Wheel - I heard it said that the wheel was probably thought up by early man seeing felled trees rolling across flat land in a wind storm.  I don't know if that's true, but It's just as likely as anything.  The wheel allows us to use leverage on the pulley.  It drives our cars and creates analog control.  Until we can come up with levitation the wheel will continue to be the most used and often taken for granted tool in our bag.

1.  Hammer - When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  As soon as a cave man figure out tasty things sometimes were held in hard containers, a rock became their first hammer.  The application of blunt force is used in everything from art to manufacture and it all goes back to the lowly hammer.  Claw, ball or sledge, the hammer is ever at our disposal more than willing to direct our kinetic energy into a single directed point.  I'd rather be a hammer indeed.










Well another one just barely out of the chute.  Thanks for reading!