{"id":33141,"date":"2019-03-01T11:38:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T18:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=33141"},"modified":"2019-03-02T10:46:41","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T17:46:41","slug":"george-dyson-writer-and-boat-builder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/george-dyson-writer-and-boat-builder\/","title":{"rendered":"George Dyson, Writer and Boat Builder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our guest this week is George Dyson. George divides his time between building boats and writing books, and some fo the books he has written include <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2tHVH1A\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2tKUnez\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Darwin among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2tKF6ug\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Turing&#8217;s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/georgedysontools.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/583450206&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cool-tools-show-and-tell\/id605920446?mt=2\">Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/feedpress.me\/cooltoolsshow\">RSS<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1lX_2VPEs2ZipK-xRjScQOkAPqX7baW8tO6E1fucMrqQ\/edit?usp=sharing\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Transcript<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/tracking.feedpress.it\/link\/7810\/11114886\/583450206-cool-tools-164-george-dyson.mp3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Download MP3<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/tag\/cool-tools-show\/\">See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Show notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/standardpeavey.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/standardpeavey.jpg\" alt=\"standardpeavey\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/standardpeavey.jpg 720w, https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/standardpeavey-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/peaveymfg.com\/collections\/standard-peavey\/products\/standard-peavey-30-to-66\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peavey<\/a> ($74)<br \/>\n&#8220;[This is] a tool that has literally not changed at all for 150 years, and it is still made by the company that it&#8217;s named after, the Peavey Company in Maine. If you do any work in the woods, with logs, chainsaws, things like that, it allows you to basically put a big leaver on the end of a log and roll the log around. It&#8217;s just a beautiful work of art tool and sort of a miracle that it&#8217;s still made and survives. You spear the log, and then that hook catches and suddenly you have a really secure five- or six-foot lever arm on the log. I cut a lot of firewood on the beach, and before you cut a log you want to roll it over and clean the sand off. It&#8217;s the only tool that&#8217;ll allow you to do that without sort of killing yourself. \u2026 It\u2019s a classic, absolutely essential and unequaled tool for any serious woodsperson.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/netneedles.jpg\" alt=\"netneedles\" width=\"650\" height=\"879\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/netneedles.jpg 650w, https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/netneedles-222x300.jpg 222w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2EEudAr\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Netting Needles<\/a> ($9) and <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ItVzjSOaPeI\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How to Carve a Net Needle and Weave a Survival Gill Net<\/a> video,<br \/>\n&#8220;[This] the net needle, which isn&#8217;t really a needle. Some people would call it a similar to a weaver&#8217;s shuttle, but it&#8217;s a little, very cleverly-made design. In fact, you can find them more or less unchanged in archeological sites that are 5000 or 6000 years old. It&#8217;s a small sort of cigar that you wind up with net-mending twine or string or anything like that, and then you have a pretty good length of string or twine on this thing that it gives you something to hold on to, and you can immediately mend nets, or of course I use them lashing kayaks together. So it&#8217;s the kind of thing that I wouldn&#8217;t go anywhere without one in my toolkit somewhere. They&#8217;re made in all sorts of sizes. There&#8217;s flat ones, and there&#8217;s three-dimensional ones, which are better. They&#8217;re still made in Norway, and there&#8217;s a company in the United States, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loomissales.com\/marine\/products\/netneedles.html \" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Loomis Company<\/a>, that makes the Norwegian pattern. \u2026 It just becomes almost automatic or second nature that as you&#8217;re weaving this thing in and out and let come off every now and then you have this handle you can pull on, so it&#8217;s a kind of tool that becomes part of your mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/Lanolin.jpg\" alt=\"Lanolin\" width=\"364\" height=\"330\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-33144\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/Lanolin.jpg 364w, https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2019\/03\/Lanolin-300x272.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 364px) 100vw, 364px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bulknaturaloils.com\/lanolin-usp.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lanolin in bulk<\/a> ($50\/gallon)<br \/>\n&#8220;Lanolin, or wool grease, which is actually a wax, is a by-product of cleaning raw wool, but it\u2019s the best part \u2014 it\u2019s how sheep in wind-swept northern Scotland stay waterproof and warm. It is used in all kinds of products, from lip balm to anti-corrosion coatings, but you can buy it pure and unadulterated for about $50\/gallon which is a lifetime supply for you and many friends. It is absolutely unexcelled for chapped skin and lips, and is favored by all serious mariners for lubricating through-hull sea-cocks and corrosion protection of metal parts and fasteners that may be exposed to years of saltwater before having to be taken apart. \u2026 it&#8217;s the greatest corrosion protection known to the maritime world. Even modern, the most modern, sailboats will still use lanolin. I gave a whole lot to everybody for Christmas. I bought little cosmetic jars, and if you heat it up &#8230; It&#8217;s very interesting. It&#8217;s actually a wax, not a grease, so if you heat it up a certain temperature then it becomes liquid. You can fill the containers, and everybody loves it. It&#8217;s like 100-proof lip balm with nothing else diluting it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2015\/07\/scrivener.jpg\" alt=\"scrivener\" width=\"475\" height=\"339\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-24586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2015\/07\/scrivener.jpg 475w, https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2015\/07\/scrivener-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2015\/07\/scrivener-420x300.jpg 420w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.literatureandlatte.com\/scrivener\/overview\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scrivener<\/a><br \/>\n&#8220;I make my living writing books, and so my tool for writing books is a software package called Scrivener that actually Neal Stephenson gave me sort of a beta version of when it first came out. It changed my life overnight. I had been struggling writing. I wrote my first book with no computer at all, I guess with a typewriter, and the second in Word on floppies, and the third one with Word and a hard drive. And then I got Scrivener, and in 24 hours I was using the program and it became transparent, and I never used Word unless I had to again. It&#8217;s just a miraculous piece of software written by one person. So I looked at my last book, Turing&#8217;s Cathedral, and if you open up the Scrivener package it is 3730 separate files of things that I collected and worked into the book, yet when you look at it from the outside, from the writer&#8217;s side, you just are sort of looking at a typewriter, and you can pull out the ideas it. \u2026. You can just throw out all this stuff and then shuffle it. It&#8217;s miraculous for a piece of software for organizing.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><em>We have hired professional editors to help create our weekly podcasts and video reviews. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $400 a month. Please consider\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cooltools\">supporting us<\/a>\u00a0on Patreon. We have great rewards for people who contribute! If you would like to make a one-time donation, you can do so using this link: <a href=\"https:\/\/paypal.me\/cooltools\">https:\/\/paypal.me\/cooltools<\/a>.\u2013 MF<\/em><\/p>\n<div class='ctx-module-container ctx_default_placement ctx-clearfix'><\/div><span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cool Tools Show 164: George Dyson <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1559],"tags":[1555,1472],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33141"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33156,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33141\/revisions\/33156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}