“$150,000 tuition & 4 years of a college education. His greatest achievement.” That’s the description given for this whopping 13 lb gummy bear cast in an old Animal Crackers container. Check out more pictures “here”:http://homepage.mac.com/vasu42/PhotoAlbum5.html of its awesome creation. Sadly it was one of the many casualties of Hurricane Katrina but this is the finished product:
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The proper way to wear picture-rings
Ever wondered about the right way to wear rings that depict faces? I’ve been wearing an old family ring my Dad gave me for years and people constantly asked me why I wore my ring upside-down. After arguing with everyone about it, I finally broke down and asked the experts at the “Emily Post Institute”:http://www.emilypost.com/. Here is my e-mail, and their response:
??…I have an old family ring that I’ve been wearing for years that depicts the face and head (in profile) of a Roman Centurion. Should the Centurion’s helmet (the top of the picture) be closer to the base of my finger, or the fingertip?…??
??…Usually, a pictorial ring is worn with the base facing the wearer, not the “observer.” Therefore, the centurion’s helmet is closest to the fingertip…??
I guess this is what they mean:
For more information about men’s fashion and style, my favorite writer is GQ’s “Style Guy”:http://men.style.com/gq/fashion/styleguy. He may be an elitist, but he does have a caustic style that’s fun to read.
Renewable energy buildings at MetaEfficient.com
I recently discovered a cool site that highlights solar and wind energy using buildings called “MetaEfficient.com”:http://www.metaefficient.com/. Just looking through their archives I’ve found a lot of fascinating buildings and building technologies. For example, the above building is Sanyo’s “Solar Ark”:, a 315 meter long building incorporating 5,046 individual solar panels in central Japan. There’s also a “solar skyscraper”:http://www.cis.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?cid=1116834043894&pagename=CoopBank/Page/tplBlank&c=Page in Manchester that’s worth looking at if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
If you happen to be building yourself, you might also want to look at these “solar tiles”:http://www.sunpowercorp.com/homebuilders/suntile.html or this “domestic turbine”:http://www.mariah-power.com/.
Mahogany car
Normally reserved for high-class furniture, mahogany is an especially strong slow-growing African hardwood. No wonder it was the material of choice to make this all-wood car, the Tryane II. The three-wheeled car can reach a top speed of 101 mph and can apparently get 55-70 miles per gallon. Like many home-built cars, the Tryane II is built on the classic Citroen 2CV engine. Enjoy the picture and if you want to know more, check out “this article”:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=451055&in_page_id=1770 from the Daily Mail newspaper.
Sustainable paper products
Apparently the big brands in disposable paper products are not environmentally responsible. While this isn’t much of a surprise to me, it has been to some of the people I’ve told, so up on the site it goes. As usual, Greenpeace has done all the work and put together “Kleercut.net”:http://kleercut.net/en/, a site dedicated to the fight for sustainable paper products. It turns out that Kimberly-Clark, the owner of the Kleenex brand, has a habit of not using recycled paper and instead getting their pulp from ancient-growth forests. Other brands to avoid (unless you for some reason hate the world) are Kleenex, Scott, Scottbrand, Cottonelle, and Viva.
Feeling guilty about going through boxes and boxes of Kleenex this past winter? Buy a “Greenpeace hankie”:http://www.strategicprofitsinc.com/mastercart/Cart/product_details.php?mid=685968961088617609&product_id=454502751098677958.
Piracy is down (the real kind)
As opposed to the bullish media-downloading market, naval piracy is way down compared to normal. In the last quarter, there were only 41 incidents of pirate activity compared to last year’s 61. The numbers itself are not that interesting but the way in which the international community analyzes and manages piracy is really cool. The pirate-control group is the “International Maritime Bureau”:http://www.icc-ccs.org/imb/overview.php part of “International Chamber of Commerce”:http://www.iccwbo.org/. View the IMB’s latest piracy report “here”:http://www.icc-ccs.org/main/news.php?newsid=83.
The Easiest Way to Give
http://www.cnwcentral.com/charities/best.shtml lists websites that donate 100% of their advertising revenue to great causes. I urge you to add at least one of these websites in your favorites and try clicking once or twice throughout your day. These websites make closing out elusive pop-ups and annoying advertisements a heart warming and fulfilling activity. My favorite website is "thehungersite.com":http://www.thehungersite.com/, which includes links to sister sites for "breast cancer":http://www.thebreastcancersite.com, "child healthcare":http://www.thechildhealthsite.com, "literacy":www.theliteracysite.com, "rainforest preservation":www.therainforestsite.com, and "animal rescue":www.theanimalrescuesite.com. This provides an effortless, yet effective way to contribute.
Homemade 3-D printer
“TreeHugger.com”:http://www.treehugger.com/ posted an “article”:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/downloading_des_5.php the other day about a cool DIY project at the “Evil Mad Scientist blog”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/. It’s all about a home-made “3-D or CNC printer”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/3printerpreview that uses sugar as the primary building material. TreeHugger already did a cool review of the machine with their post, but they neglected to mention the really cool “toaster mod”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/cnctoast pictured below.
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome and "Fab @ Home":http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page, both really good places to find out about the grassroots of this revolutionary technology. For a really great treatment about just how revolutionary 3-D printing could be, read Charles Stross' "Singularity Sky":http://www.librarything.com/work.php?book=14432707.
Save Money – Get Your Free Financial Report Card and GPA
One of your most important things in your financial life is your “FICO score”:http://www.myfico.com/Downloads/Files/myFICO_UYFS_Booklet.pdf. It is essentially fiscal GPA that measures how worthy of credit you are based upon several factors. It is imperative to know what yours is. Unfortunately, each time your FICO score is “officially requested”:http://www.myfico.com/Products/Products.aspx it “decreases”:http://www.fico.org/HowScoreCountsInquiries.aspx. Thanks to a great “FICO score estimator”:http://bankrate.com/brm/fico/calc.asp?lpid=BKRATE29 at “bankrate.com”:www.bankrate.com, you can get an accurate estimated range of where you’re at so you can “learn to improve it”:http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/myFICO2?OpenDocument and compare yourself to the “median”:http://www.creditscoring.com/. Another thing you should get annually is your “free credit report”:www.annualcreditreport.com from one of “three agencies”:http://www.legit411.com/credit-card-bureaus.html. By monitoring both your GPA and report card, you’re more secure from “identity theft”:http://duenos.net/article/156/UseProtectionAgainstIDThieves and exponentially more attractive to loaners.
You'll want to know what's in that treasure box, too.
I recently discovered Treasure Box, a “beautiful little flash game”:http://www.senggeng.com/wada/compe/main.html, and I could not help become engrossed in simple, stylish puzzles that it offers. The premise is straightforward: guide the bright, red ball through the various quirks, twists, and turns of this bizarre world to a well-hidden and mysterious treasure box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Submarine_(film)