TOOLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

RESOURCES FOR FLYING, CLEANING, GAMBLING, AND PATENTING

KITEWORKS

Maxwell Eden. Sterling Publishing Company, 1989, $14.95

PLUSES: Beautiful kites.

MINUSES: Tools and manual dexterity required.

THE VERDICT: Suitable for the project oriented.

The happy-go-lucky pastime of kite flying gets serious. Kiteworks details the
history of ancient and modern kites and lavishes attention on the building plans
for some of the most outrageous fliers, fighters, and soarers in the world.
Although the would-be builder may find some comfort in such precepts as "You may
wish to round off fractional numbers to the nearest one-half inch for
convenience," some people may be intimidated by the instructions. Here's a
typically daunting excerpt from the directions for the ostensibly simple
diamond-shaped kite of yesteryear: "The 68.4-inch cross-spar is bowed 10 percent
(of AB) and tilted 45 degrees towards the bottom." Protractor not included.

THE PATENTABLE IDEA

Videotape. Salzman & Levy, 1990. The Press Building, Suite 606, 19 Chenango
Street. Binghamton, NY 13901. $19.95 PLUSES: "An idea is a valuable, precious
resource......

MINUSES: "Intellectual property can be stolen......

THE VERDICT: Avoids the bottom line.

Brace yourselves, independent inventors. It's damn near impossible to patent
something without a lawyer. This video presentation makes it painfully clear
why.

Simple questions have complex answers in the patent game, and the rules are
shifty. The video presentation, presided over by the esteemed Mark Levy, a
patent attorney who is aided by a team of informed "students," shows you the tip
of the patent iceberg but sidesteps just one basic question: How much?

FROGMATS

Frogmat Environmental Protection, Shalfleet Manor Farm, Shalfleet, Isle of
Wight, UK P030 4NS.

PLUSES: A lucid idea.

MINUSES: Only one Frogmat-making machine exists.

THE VERDICT: If true, double thumbs-up.

Could it be any more simple? Absorb waterborne oil spills with straw. An
independent scientific consulting firm verifies this claim and adds to it: Some
straws absorb more than 15 times their own weight in oil.

Isle of Wight native Ken Frogbrook adds circular bales of straw to his
42-foot-long Frogmat machine, which grinds the straw and stuffs it into loosely
woven mats. The machine spits out 35 feet of mat per minute costing about four
dollars a foot. Frogmats float, they lay flat to protect beaches, and, when
encompassing an oil spill, they corral the noxious stuff. Oil companies, are
you listening?

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GAMBLING

Carl Sifakis. Facts on File, 1991

PLUSES: Finally,. the definite klob.

MINUSES: Honey, how about vacationing in Las Vegas this year?

THE VERDICT: Hit me.

Omar Sharif, an early practitioner of card counting, has been advised to stay
out of Las Vegas. Employing some of the cunning gambling tricks revealed here
could earn you the same privilige. Other priceless details, couched in
encycopedic entries, include how to discern if dice are loaded, how to detect a
marked deck, and the rules for virtually every game of chance under the sun.