People with a fascination for gear should have a look at Cool Tools. The sort of people who make a point of reading through the MEC catalog are likely to enjoy this site. Some of the pieces of gear look highly useful. For those unlikely to lose it, a windproof umbrella might be a worthwhile investment. Some of the kitchen gadgets are decidedly strange, or serve very rare and limited purposes. For creative sorts, there is a kit for those who want to assemble their own dulcimer. Damsels with dulcimers cannot be guaranteed “a sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice”, but they can be offered tools to help in building their own igloo.
Some of this may end up on my gear wish list.
A more aggressive collection of useful gadgets is described at Kit Up. While much of it is specifically military, some of it is appropriate for hiking and camping as well.
PS. This metal pencil is also quite cool. It uses some kind of metal alloy that writes on paper in a way that looks like pencil, yet cannot be rubbed out. For years, I have wanted some neodymium magnets to play with.
I also like the look of this chainless bike.
Speaking of ‘decidedly strange’
…lobster mittens
Here are some cool handmade metal tools.
This previous post relates to the same general subject area as the one above.
Those Peter Atwood metal tools look really cool and well made. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of them would be terribly useful for me. I already have a SOG Crosscut on my keychain and a SwissTool X for more demanding circumstances.
My brother Sasha subsequently got me a set of neodymium magnets from ThinkGeek.
A few have had their plating broken off by snapping together and a few totally broke into pieces. I keep the survivors in their original packaging in my designated kitchen cupboard with my canned black and kidney beans and nutritional yeast.
A great toy and a danger to hard drives and credit cards to this day.