Following are some comments on tools, mostly kept in context.
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Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
with brightly colored machine tools.
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"If I had a hammer..." (folk song by Pete Seegar or Peter, Paul & Mary?)
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For want of a nail a shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe a horse was lost.
For want of a horse a battle was lost.
For want of a battle a war was lost.
For want of a nail a shoe was lost.
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Some basic tools are:
shovel (for digging the foundation)
hammer (and nails)
screwdriver (slotted and Phillips)
saw (medium, all-purpose)
file (medium, all-purpose)
pliers (adjustable)
string & wire
Many others tools just enhance some of these basic functions.
Many things were built before power tools.
Many injuries are caused by mis-use of power tools.
Many power tools are fun to use and do incredible things.
In the right hands, many nice things are build with power tools.
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"It's a poor workman who blames his tools."
-- unknown
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"If the poor workman hates his tools, the good workman hates poor tools.
The work of the workingman is, in a sense, defined by his tool - witness
the way in which the tool is so often taken
to symbolize the worker:
the tri-square for the carpenter,
the trowel for the mason,
the transit for the surveyor,
the camera for the photographer,
the hammer for the laborer,
and the sickle for the farmer.
"Working with defective or poorly designed tools,
even the finest craftsman is reduced to producing inferior work,
and is thereby reduced to being an inferior craftsman.
No craftsman, if he aspires to the highest work in his profession,
will accept such tools;
and no employer, if he appreciates the quality of work,
will ask the craftsman to accept them."
-- Gerald M. Weinberg
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"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
-- saying
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Advice from an old carpenter: Measure twice, cut once.
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"The one who works with the best toys wins."
(United Technologies)
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"A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine
is but a complex tool. He that invents a machine augments
the power of man and the well-being of mankind."
-- Henry Ward Beecher
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"A successful tool is used to do something undreamed of by its author."
-- Johnson
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"The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking
habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities."
-- Edsger Dijkstra
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"Man must shape his tools lest they shape him."
-- Arthur Miller
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"Men have become the tools of their tools."
-- Henry Thoreau
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"Give us the tools, and we will finish the job."
-- Winston Churchill (February 9, 1941)
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"The question is who should pay for it and how much?"
-- Jorgen Bundgaard, DDC-I, 1989
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