Ryobi cordless tools because I’m a light duty user. Wiha screwdrivers because I’m worth it (and they are worth it). And the nice Hakko soldering tools because I use those more.

I had a Harbor Height cordless drill that worked just fine for like six years, to my surprise and delight. I’m a light duty user, so I upgraded to a brushless Ryobi.

Universal Radio Hacker probably isn’t as simple as you are hoping, but it should be moderately easy and very powerful https://github.com/jopohl/urh

Wait until you learn about micro ops and processor internals. That somebody isn’t as wrong as you think.

To be fair to 4, cell phones are miraculous.

It’s off site, but hackaday.com is great for (mostly) electronics and computer tech articles.