Cautionary Tales for the 21st Century
Welcome! There’s more interesting schtuff on the second page. Not just more, but more interesting.
Try this, for instance: Giant Fresnel Lens
Oh, and come visit us at Maker Faire 2009! We’ll be melting your spare change into pretty (if smoldering) memorabilia. Here’s me making silly faces at the auditions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentkb/3339939426/in/photostream/ .
Posted in Uncategorized.
Describes a chemical reaction which has unusually impressive results. Classes tend to obscure the fact that behind all the hard, dry explanations there is a rich, nougatey magic core to chemistry. Spontaneous reactions might as well be potions, and a knowledge of practical chemistry can turn you into a modern-day wizard.
Posted in Neologism.
Don’t you hate warning messages? ”Are you sure you want to close _______?” They always come up when yes, I’m certain I want to close that blank Word document, and yet they never seem to stand in the way of a late-night me dead set on data loss. So here’s my solution, free to you loyal readers: make the warning depend on what’s at stake.
The basic problem is ubiquity. When you get that message every. damn. time. you try to close a program, it loses meaning and you just automatically hit “OK.” It only makes sense that when you’re closing a blank document, the program shouldn’t shout at you too much. Likewise, when it’s 3AM and you accidentally hit “Exit” on the paper you’ve been working on all night, it should make a big deal about it.
A consecrated or blessed weapon. Examples include use of baptismal font water against the undead, swords of the Templars, and of course the Holy Hand Grenade.
Posted in Neologism.
I’ve been shopping for a new laptop/camera/tools/life bag for a while, and like everyone else, checked out Timbuk2. They seem short on dividers, ruggedly built, overpriced, and I’ll probably buy one unless someone talks me out of it. If you have any suggestions for other fantastic, all-weather bike-able bags with enough space for a small set of tools, a tank of a thinkpad and other whatnots, please let me know. Pockets and nooks would be nice.
So I started playing around with custom bag patterns. The first is my favorite, followed by these two:
Have any other clever design ideas?
Posted in Random.
Sometimes your house is too damn cold for the wonderful yeast beasts that make your dough rise. Don’t let the momentary weather slump get ya down, just add a little heat! Little’s the key word here, as too much heat may begin to cook the dough and kill off the yeastmonsters. The next time your pizza dough refuses to rise, threatening you with an evening sans-delicious, try this:
A heating pad and a pair of dumbells, and the dough gets the gentle warming it needs. Of course, already owning the heating pad makes this little hack a lot more convenient.
Posted in Quickie.
Napoleowned. v. Past tense of Napoleown. To be Napoleowned is to be severely defeated, generally during a land battle in Asia. An alternative use is to have your Europe thoroughly invaded by a small and very clever man.
Origin- First said after a European army was massacred in Asia during a game of Risk.
Posted in Neologism.
This is the first of many random ideas that are too involved for me to pull off, or which I’m too busy to work on, but which I want to release to all of you.
The idea is to slip scents into appropriate parts of books. My original thought was cologne in romance novels, selectively dosed on the steamiest pages. Think of it as literary Smell-O-Vision.
The main barrier to doing a full project on this is the difficulty in documenting the results. It’s hard to subtly stalk a book buyer or borrower around with a camera until they get to juuuust the right passage. Should that stop you from greatly expanding the sensory depth of a book? Hell no! So go out there and improve someone else’s reading experience.
Am I brainhacking/scentbombing library books right now? It’s possible…
Posted in Random.
Admit it. You’ve been playing GTA and imagined the godlike wonder of actually driving your actual car from above. You could see all the way around, all the time… anticipate any approach… parallel park with millimeters to spare… replay exactly how close you were to death over and over again for appalled relatives and potential passengers.
