The other day The Colbert Report did a segment about the growing of the nanny state and people who are destroying America. His target in the episode was SawStop and the inventor Steve Gass, "Who's do gooding dun gone do bad", as Colbert puts it. Should people have the right to by cheaper tools knowing that they may get injured if they use the tool incorrectly, or should we be forced to purchase a more expensive saw on the chance that we might make contact with the blade? Do we want a country that believes in freedom of choice, or do we want to be told what is best for us? In the video below, a table saw user feels he should have the right to be able to cut off his own finger.

Your hammer drill still not small enough for you? Bosch just announced that they are coming out with the PS130 hammer drill for their 12V Max line. I don't know exactly who a 12V Max hammer drill is aimed towards, but with the popularity of ultra compact tools, I guess it makes sense.

Hammer drills are becoming more and more powerful and can handle many of our concrete drilling needs, but when we need to drill larger holes or we need speed, a rotary hammer is the way to go. Bosch's new RHS181 18-volt cordless rotary offers the portability we want from hammer drills, with the power we expect from rotary hammers.

Instead of buying a large quantity of regular glue brushes that you always end up throwing away, Rockler wants you to buy their new Silicone Glue Brush (45624), keep it, and reuse it over and over again. Their Silicone Glue Brush looks like a mini version of a silicone brush you might find in a kitchen, and if the technology works so well in the kitchen, it might be worth giving it a try in the shop.

Today DeWalt showed us that there are not messing around and they are willing to compete with the other brands to win you over. They were a little behind and had to play catch up with their 18-volt slide-style battery tools known to us as 20V Max, but it looks like they have kept their engineers busy to keep the 20V Max selection growing fast. It was back in June 2011 when DeWalt first introduced their 20V Max tool line and now, only 8 months later, they are expanding on their line with 8 new 20V tools.

Despite the relatively small size of the current laser distance measurers on the market, sometimes they can be hard to handle. In certain situations it can be awkward to hit the buttons. A new pencil-like design from Hilti might just remedy some of those ergonomic issues when they arise.

Impact drivers are great at screwing in the largest of screws and even lag bolts, impacts are also really good at loosening screws that might have become stuck over the years. But what if you need to loosen a screw and you need little more "impact" and a little less "driver"? You use a hand powered impact driver.

Having a radio going while you work is like being inside a time warp. There is something about the music that makes the time just a little bit faster. But hauling a big radio onto the jobsite is the last thing on my mind when I have to unload a miter saw, air compressor and my other tools. Size is the reason I have not purchased a jobsite radio, but the latest radio from Makita UK is small enough to possibly be my first.

3D printers are becoming more and more popular among the DIY crowd. The open source community has been playing a huge part in allowing people to purchase or build their own 3D printers at prices in the neighborhood of $1000, which is pretty good considering what they can do. This year 3D printers are even more popular and the prices are coming down, way down.

Updated with link to all 1616 color photos

Do you know what the 30's and 40's looked like in color? Just about everything we see from that period of time is in black and white, and it is hard to picture it any other way. Sure there are movies that depict the era, but how accurate are they to the real thing?