A modern toolbox.

A tool is any item that can be used to achieve a goal, especially one that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such as Instrument, Utensil, Implement, Machine, or Apparatus. The set of tools needed to achieve a goal is equipment. The knowledge of constructing, obtaining and using tools is technology.

Tool use by humans dates back millions of years, and other animals are also known to employ simple tools.

History[link]

Prehistoric stone tools over 10,000 years old, found in Les Combarelles cave, France

Carpentry tools recovered from the wreck of a 16th century sailing ship, the Mary Rose.

Stone and metal knives

An upholstery regulator

Anthropologists believe that the use of tools was an important step in the evolution of mankind.^[1] Humans evolved an opposable thumb — useful in holding tools — and increased dramatically in intelligence, which aided in the use of tools.^[2] Because tools are used extensively by both humans and wild chimpanzees, it is widely assumed that the first routine use of tools took place prior to the divergence between the two species.^[3] These early tools, however, were likely made of perishable materials such as sticks, or consisted of unmodified stones that cannot be distinguished from other stones as tools. The beginning of the Stone Age marks the era when hominins first began manufacturing stone tools, and evidence of these tools dates back at least 2.6 million years in Ethiopia.^[4] One of the earliest distinguishable stone tool forms is the hand axe.

Tools are the most important items that the ancient humans used to climb to the top of the food chain; by inventing tools, they were able to accomplish tasks that human bodies could not, such as using a spear or bow and arrow to kill prey, since their teeth were not sharp enough to pierce many animals' skins.

The transition from stone to metal tools roughly coincided with the development of agriculture around the 4th millennium BC. Mechanical devices experienced a major expansion in their use in the Middle Ages with the systematic employment of new energy sources: water (waterwheels) and wind (windmills).

Machine tools occasioned a surge in producing new tools in the industrial revolution. Advocates of nanotechnology expect a similar surge as tools become microscopic in size.^[5][6]

Functions[link]

One can classify tools according to their basic functions:

• Cutting tools, such as the knife, scythe or sickle, are wedge-shaped implements that produce a shearing force along a narrow face. Ideally, the edge of the tool needs to be harder than the material being cut or else the blade will become dulled with repeated use. But even resilient tools will require periodic sharpening, which is the process of removing deformation wear from the edge. Other examples of cutting tools include gouges and drill bits.
• Moving tools move huge and tiny things. For example, concentrating-force tools: the hammer moves a nail, the maul moves a stake, or a whip moves flesh on a horse. These operate by applying physical compression to a surface. In the case of the screwdriver, the force is rotational and called torque. Writing implements deliver a fluid to a surface via compression to activate the ink cartridge. Also grabbing and twisting nuts and bolts with pliers, a glove, a wrench, etc. All these tools move items by some kind of force. Also trucks, rockets and airplanes move larger items and particle accelerators move very small items.
• Tools that enact chemical changes, including temperature and ignition, such as lighters and blowtorches.
• Guiding, measuring and perception tools include the ruler, glasses, set square, sensors, straightedge, theodolite, microscope, monitor, clock, phone, printer
• Shaping tools, such as molds, jigs, trowels.
• Fastening tools, such as welders, rivet guns, nail guns, or glue guns.
• Information and data manipulation tools, such as computers, middleware, IDE, spreadsheets

Some tools may be combinations of other tools. An alarm-clock is for example a combination of a measuring tool (the clock) and a perception tool (the alarm). This enables the alarm-clock to be a tool that falls outside of all the categories mentioned above.

There is some debate on whether to consider protective gear items as tools, because they do not directly help perform work, just protect the worker like ordinary clothing. They do meet the general definition of tools and in many cases are necessary for the completion of the work. Personal protective equipment includes such items as gloves, safety glasses, ear defenders and biohazard suits.

Tool substitution[link]

Often, by design or coincidence, a tool may share key functional attributes with one or more other tools. In this case, some tools can substitute for other tools, either as a makeshift solution or as a matter of practical efficiency. "One tool does it all" is a motto of some importance for workers who cannot practically carry every specialized tool to the location of every work task; such as a carpenter who does not necessarily work in a shop all day and needs to do jobs in a customer's house. Tool substitution may be divided broadly into two classes: substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose" use, and substitution as makeshift. Substitution "by-design" would be tools that are designed specifically to accomplish multiple tasks using only that one tool. Substitution as makeshift is when human ingenuity comes into play and a tool is used for its unintended purpose such as a mechanic using a long screw driver to separate a cars control arm from a ball joint instead of using a tuning fork. In many cases, the designed secondary functions of tools are not widely known. As an example of the former, many wood-cutting hand saws integrate a carpenter's square by incorporating a specially shaped handle that allows 90° and 45° angles to be marked by aligning the appropriate part of the handle with an edge and scribing along the back edge of the saw. The latter is illustrated by the saying "All tools can be used as hammers." Nearly all tools can be used to function as a hammer, even though very few tools are intentionally designed for it and even fewer work as well as the original.

Tools are also often used to substitute for many mechanical apparatuses, especially in older mechanical devices. In many cases a cheap tool could be used to occupy the place of a missing mechanical part. A window roller in a car could easily be replaced with a pair of vice grips or regular pliers. A transmission shifter or ignition switch would be able to be replaced with a screw-driver. Again, these would be considered tools that are being used for their unintended purposes, substitution as makeshift. Tools such as a Dremel would be considered the substitution "by-design", or "multi-purpose". This class of tools allows the use of one tool that has at least two different capabilities. "Multi-purpose" tools are basically multiple tools in one device/tool. Tools such as this are often power tools that come with many different attachments like a Dremel does, so you could say that a power drill is a "multi-purpose" tool because you can do more than just one thing with a power drill.

Multi-use tools[link]

Bicycle multi-tool

A Multi-tool is a hand tool that incorporates several tools into a single, portable device; the Swiss army knife represents one of the earliest examples. Other tools have a primary purpose but also incorporate other functionality - for example, lineman's pliers incorporate a gripper and cutter, and are often used as a hammer; and some hand saws incorporate a carpenter's square in the right-angle between the blade's dull edge and the saw's handle. This would also be the category in which the "multi-purpose" tools since they are also multiple tools in one (multi-use and multi-purpose can be used interchangeably). These types of tools were specifically made to catch the eye of many different craftsman who traveled to do their work. To these workers these types of tools were revolutionary because they were one tool or one device that could do several different things. With this knew revolution of tools the traveling craftsman would not have to carry so many tools with them to job sites, being that their space would be limited to the vehicle they were driving. The problem of having to deal with so many different tools was solved with the overtaking of multi-use tools.

Tool metaphors[link]

A telephone is a communication tool that interfaces between two people engaged in conversation at one level. And between each user and the communication network at another. It is in the domain of media and communications technology that a counter-intuitive aspect of our relationships with our tools first began to gain popular recognition. Marshall McLuhan famously said "We shape our tools. And then our tools shape us." McLuhan was referring to the fact that our social practices co-evolve with our use of new tools and the refinements we make to existing tools.

In North American colloquialism, the word "tool" may be loosely used to describe an individual of low mental capacity (essentially, an "idiot") or someone who fails to realise that they are being taken advantage of by others.^[7] This metaphor is drawn from the understanding that tools (as understood by most of society) are objects that are used for specific tasks.

Use by animals[link]

Observation has confirmed that multiple species can use tools including monkeys, apes, several birds, and sea otters. Philosophers originally thought that only humans had the ability to make tools, until zoologists observed birds^[8] and monkeys^[9][10][11] making tools. Now the unique relationship of humans with tools is considered to be that we are the only species that uses tools to make other tools.^[12]

See also[link]

• Device paradigm
• List of tool-lending libraries
• Toolbank
• Toolmaker

References[link]

Look up tool in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tools

Andy Rooney
Born	Andrew Aitken Rooney (1919-01-14)January 14, 1919 Albany, New York[1]
Died	November 4, 2011(2011-11-04) (aged 92) New York City, New York
Notable work(s)	The weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" on 60 Minutes
Notable award(s)	Emmy 2003 Lifetime Achievement 1980 "Tanks" 1980 "Grain" 1978 "Who Owns What in America" 1968 "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed"
Spouse(s)	Marguerite Rooney (m. 1942–2004) «start: (1942)–end+1: (2005)»"Marriage: Marguerite Rooney to Andy Rooney" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Andy_Rooney)(her death)
Children	Brian, Emily, Martha, Ellen
Influences Harry Reasoner, Mike Wallace, E. B. White

Andrew Aitken "Andy" Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer. He was most notable for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes from 1978 to 2011. His final regular appearance on 60 Minutes aired October 2, 2011. He died one month later, on November 4, 2011, at age 92.

Early life[link]

Andrew Rooney was born in Albany, the son of Walter Scott Rooney (1888–1959) and Ellinor (Reynolds) Rooney (1886–1980). He attended The Albany Academy,^[2] and later attended Colgate University in Hamilton in Central New York,^[3] where he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity, before he was drafted into the United States Army in August 1941.

World War II[link]

Rooney began his career in newspapers while in the Army when, in 1942, he began writing for Stars and Stripes in London during World War II.^[4]

In February 1943, flying with the Eighth Air Force, he was one of six correspondents who flew on the second American bombing raid over Germany.^[5] Later, he was one of the first American journalists to visit the Nazi concentration camps near the end of World War II, and one of the first to write about them. During a segment on Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, Rooney stated that he had been opposed to World War II because he was a pacifist. He recounted that what he saw in those concentration camps made him ashamed that he had opposed the war and permanently changed his opinions about whether "just wars" exist.

For his service as a war correspondent in combat zones during the war Rooney was decorated with the Bronze Star Medal and Air Medal.^[6]

Rooney's 1995 memoir, My War, chronicles his war reporting. In addition to recounting firsthand several notable historical events and people (including the entry into Paris and the Nazi concentration camps), Rooney describes how it shaped his experience both as a writer and reporter.^[5]

Career[link]

Rooney joined CBS in 1949, as a writer for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts,^[5] when Godfrey was at his peak on CBS radio and TV. It opened the show up to a variety of viewers. The program was a hit, reaching number one in 1952, during Rooney's tenure with the program. It was the beginning of a close life-long friendship between Rooney and Godfrey. He wrote for Godfrey's daytime radio and TV show Arthur Godfrey Time. He later moved on to The Garry Moore Show,^[7] which became a hit program. During the same period, he wrote for CBS News public affairs programs such as The Twentieth Century.

According to CBS News's biography of him, "Rooney wrote his first television essay, a longer-length precursor of the type he does on 60 Minutes, in 1964, "An Essay on Doors."^[8] From 1962, to 1968, he collaborated with another close friend, the late CBS News correspondent Harry Reasoner — Rooney writing and producing, Reasoner narrating — on such notable CBS News specials as "An Essay on Bridges" (1965),^[8] "An Essay on Hotels" (1966),^[8] "An Essay on Women" (1967),^[8] and "The Strange Case of the English Language" (1968).^[8] In 1968, he wrote two CBS News specials in the series "Of Black America,"^[8] and his script for "Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed" won him his first Emmy."^[9]

When CBS declined to broadcast "An Essay on War" in 1970, Rooney quit CBS and read the opinion himself on PBS — his first appearance on television.^[10] That show in 1971 won Rooney his third Writers Guild Award.^[8] Rooney re-joined CBS in 1973, to write and produce special programs.^[10] Rooney also wrote the script for the 1975 documentary FDR: The Man Who Changed America.

After his return to the network, Rooney wrote and appeared in several prime-time specials for CBS, including In Praise of New York City (1974),^[7] the Peabody Award-winning Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington (1975),^[7] Mr. Rooney Goes to Dinner (1978),^[7] and Mr. Rooney Goes to Work (1977).^[7] Transcripts of these specials, as well as of some of the earlier collaborations with Reasoner, are contained in the book A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. Another special, Andy Rooney Takes Off, followed in 1984.

[edit] A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney

Rooney's "end-of-show" segment on 60 Minutes, "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" (originally "Three Minutes or So With Andy Rooney"^[5]), began in 1978, as a summer replacement for the debate segment "Point/Counterpoint"^[5] featuring Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick. The segment proved popular enough with viewers that beginning in the fall of 1978, it was seen in alternate weeks with the debate segment. At the end of the 1978–1979 season, "Point/Counterpoint" was dropped altogether.^[5]

In the segment, Rooney typically offered satire on a trivial everyday issue, such as the cost of groceries, annoying relatives, or faulty Christmas presents. Rooney's appearances on "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" often included whimsical lists, e.g., types of milk,^[11] bottled water brands,^[12] car brands,^[13] sports mascots,^[14] etc. In later years, his segments became more political as well. Despite being best known for his television presence on 60 Minutes, Rooney always considered himself a writer who incidentally appeared on television behind his famous walnut table, which he made himself.

Controversies[link]

Rooney made a number of comments which elicited strong reactions from fans and producers alike.

Insensitivity towards minorities[link]

Rooney wrote a column in 1992 that posited that it was "silly" for Native Americans to complain about team names like the Redskins, in which he wrote in part, "The real problem is, we took the country away from the Indians, they want it back and we're not going to give it to them. We feel guilty and we'll do what we can for them within reason, but they can't have their country back. Next question."^[15]

In a 2007 column for Tribune media services, he wrote, "I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today's baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me." Rooney later commented, "Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said it, [but] it's a name that seems common in baseball now. I certainly didn't think of it in any derogatory sense."^[15]

In 1990, Rooney was suspended without pay for three months by then-CBS News President David Burke, because of the negative publicity around his saying that "too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes [are] all known to lead to premature death."^[16] He wrote an explanatory letter to a gay organization after being ordered not to do so. After only four weeks without Rooney, 60 Minutes lost 20 percent of its audience. CBS management then decided that it was in the best interest of the network to have Rooney return immediately.^[17]

After Rooney's reinstatement, he made his remorse public:

Rooney always denied that he was a racist. In the 1940s, he was arrested after sitting in the back of a segregated bus in protest.^[19] Also, in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, Rooney applauded the fact that "the citizens of this country, 80 percent of whom are white, freely chose to elect a black man as their leader simply because they thought he was the best choice." He said that makes him proud, and that it proves that the country has "come a long way — a good way."^[20]

Remarks on Kurt Cobain's suicide[link]

In a 1994 segment, Rooney attracted controversy with his remarks on Kurt Cobain's suicide. He expressed his dismay that the death of Richard Nixon was overshadowed by Cobain's suicide, stating that he had never heard of Cobain nor his band, Nirvana. He went on to say that Cobain's suicide made him angry. "A lot of people would like to have the years left that he threw away," Rooney said. "What's all this nonsense about how terrible life is?" he asked, adding rhetorically to a young woman who had wept at the suicide, "I'd love to relieve the pain you're going through by switching my age for yours." In addition, he asked "What would all these young people be doing if they had real problems like a Depression, World War II or Vietnam?" and commented that "If [Cobain] applied the same brain to his music that he applied to his drug-infested life, it's reasonable to think that his music may not have made much sense either."^[21]

On the following Sunday's show, he apologized on the air, saying he should have taken Cobain's depression into account. He also read only critical feedback from listeners without interjecting any commentary of his own.^[22][23]

Collections and retirement[link]

Rooney's shorter television essays have been archived in numerous books, such as Common Nonsense, which came out in 2002,^[24] and Years of Minutes, probably his best-known work, released in 2003.^[25] He penned a regular syndicated column for Tribune Media Services that ran in many newspapers in the United States, and which has been collected in book form. He won three Emmy Awards for his essays,^[26] which numbered over 1,000. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003.^[27] Rooney's renown made him a frequent target of parodies and impersonations by a diverse group of comedic figures, including Frank Caliendo, Rich Little and Beavis.

In 1993, CBS released a two-volume VHS tape set of the best of Rooney's commentaries and field reports, called "The Andy Rooney Television Collection — His Best Minutes." In 2006, CBS released three DVDs of his more recent commentaries, "Andy Rooney On Almost Everything," "Things That Bother Andy Rooney," and "Andy Rooney's Solutions."^{[citation needed]}

Rooney's final regular appearance on 60 Minutes was on October 2, 2011,^[28] after 33 years on the show.^[29] It was his 1,097th commentary.^[30]

Views[link]

He claimed on Larry King Live to have a liberal bias, stating, "There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I'm consistently liberal in my opinions."^[31] In a controversial 1999 book Rooney self-identified as agnostic,^[32] but by 2004 he was calling himself an atheist.^[33] He reaffirmed this in 2008.^[34] Over the years, many of his editorials poked fun at the concept of God and organized religion. Increased speculation on this was brought to a head by a series of comments he made regarding Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ (2004).^[35]

Though Rooney has been called Irish-American, he once said "I'm proud of my Irish heritage, but I'm not Irish. I'm not even Irish-American. I am American, period."

In 2005, when four people were fired at CBS News perhaps because of the Killian documents controversy, Rooney said, "The people on the front lines got fired while the people most instrumental in getting the broadcast on escaped." Others at CBS had "kept mum" about the controversy.^[36]

Personal life[link]

Rooney was married to Marguerite "Margie" Rooney (née Howard) for 62 years, until she died of heart failure in 2004. He later wrote, "her name does not appear as often as it originally did [in my essays] because it hurts too much to write it."^[37] They had four children; Brian, Emily, Martha and Ellen. His daughter Emily Rooney is a TV talk show host and former ABC News producer who went on to host a nightly Boston-area public affairs program, Greater Boston, on WGBH. Emily's identical twin, Martha, became Chief of the Public Services Division at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. The third daughter, Ellen, is a photographer based in London. His son, Brian Rooney, has been a correspondent for ABC since the 1980s.

Rooney also had a sister Nancy Reynolds Rooney (1915–2008).

Rooney lived in the Rowayton section of Norwalk, Connecticut,^[38] and in Rensselaerville, New York,^[39] and was a longtime season ticket holder for the New York Giants.^[40]

Death[link]

Rooney was hospitalized on October 25, 2011, after developing postoperative complications from an undisclosed surgery,^[41] and died on November 4, 2011, at the age of 92, less than five weeks after his last appearance on 60 Minutes.^[42][43]

Awards[link]

• 2001 — Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.^[44]

Books[link]

Books written by Rooney:

• Conquerors' Peace; report to the American stockholders, by Oram C. Hutton and Andrew A. Rooney. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947.
• A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney, 1981 (ISBN 0-689-11194-0)
• And More by Andy Rooney, 1985 (ISBN 0-517-40622-5)
• Pieces of My Mind, 1986 (ISBN 0-689-11492-3)
• The Most of Andy Rooney, 1986 (ISBN 0-689-11864-3)
• Word for Word, 1988 (ISBN 0-399-13200-7)
• Not That You Asked ..., 1989 (ISBN 0-394-57837-6)
• Most of Andy Rooney, 1990 (ISBN 0-88365-765-1)
• Sweet and Sour, 1992 (ISBN 0-399-13774-2)
• My War, 1997 (ISBN 0-517-17986-5)
• Sincerely, Andy Rooney, 1999 (ISBN 1-891620-34-7)
• The Complete Andy Rooney, 2000 (ISBN 0-446-11219-4)
• Common Nonsense, 2002, (ISBN 1-586482-00-9)
• Years of Minutes, 2003 (ISBN 1-58648-211-4)
• Out of My Mind, 2006 (ISBN 1-58648-416-8)
• 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit, 2009 (ISBN 1-58648-773-6)

References[link]

External links[link]

	Biography portal
	United States Army portal

• Andy Rooney at the Internet Movie Database
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by or about Andy Rooney in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Andy Rooney collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal
• CBS Biography
• Archive of previous "A Few Minutes ..." segments
• Snopes.com on Rooney E-Mail Snopes.com's article on false e-mail claims
• Andy Rooney Interview at Archive of American Television
• A film clip "The Open Mind - Andy Rooney on Andy Rooney (2003)" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Andy Rooney at Find a Grave

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