Catalog of Possibilities

 

Henry Brown - 507 Mechanical Movements

There's a website that animates many of these that is distracting in a good way.

Kevin Kelly's guest was talking about this book and website (Cool Tools #306) and said something like "It's a catalog of possiblities."  I love that phrase... it's an idea book.

See also, Tools for Possibilities - which is like a weekly indexed version of the same thing: seeds and seedlings, or organizers, or puzzles.  Here's the most recent index because they're sent out weekly.

As I researched that phrase a little bit, I found that it's the subtitle of his Cool Tools book.  Here's the blurb on Amazon (I love the phrase "serves as an education outside the classroom":

Cool Tools is a highly curated selection of the best tools available for individuals and small groups. Tools include hand tools, maps, how-to books, vehicles, software, specialized devices, gizmos, websites -- and anything useful. Tools are selected and presented in the book if they are the best of kind, the cheapest, or the only thing available that will do the job. This is an oversized book which reviews over 1,500 different tools, explaining why each one is great, and what its benefits are. Indirectly the book illuminates the possibilities contained in such tools and the whole catalog serves an education outside the classroom. The content in this book was derived from ten years of user reviews published at the Cool Tools website, cool-tools.org.

Here's KK's own blurb about it:

Animated mechanical movements

When making toys, I refer to 507 Mechanical Movements. This old book is sort of a periodic table of known mechanical movements, first published in 1868. The book has been scanned onto the web, with many of the gears animated into looping gifs so you can see exactly how their ingenious mechanisms work and what movements they create. Just paging through this amazing 507 Movements website fills me with ideas. — KK 

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” — George Carlin

“You know, the matrix says, ‘Pick an identity and stick with it. Because I want to sell you some beer and shampoo and I need you to stick with what you are so I’ll know how to market it to you.’ Drag is the opposite. Drag says, ‘Identity is a joke.’” — RuPaul

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.” — Mark Strand

“You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.” — Alan Watts