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January 2007 Archive
Heavy-duty stain removal
I have a 1927-type porcelain bathtub, and it once looked that old. I tried fruitlessly over the years to remove the dinginess at the bottom with scouring pads and liquid tile cleaners. Then someone gave me a pumice scouring stick and I was able to restore the tub to good-as-new condition (without marring the finish). It took ten or 15 minutes, and required several rinsings and re-scrubbing of spots I'd missed, or hadn't worked on hard enough. But in the end, it really worked; and annual touch-ups require three to five minutes. I wouldn't use these sticks on plastic, though. They're so abrasive they'd scour into anything softer than glass. As such, the sticks are also good for removing paint from concrete and tile, baked-on build-ups from ovens and grills, and rust from garden tools.
I got one recently for $8.50 at True Value. Pumie also makes a less fancy stick without the plastic handle that costs half as much at True Value ($4.50). I recommend spending the extra bucks: the handle makes it less yucky when scouring a toilet bowl ring, and it doesn't require you to wear gloves to protect your hands when scouring a tub. These sticks last long enough that it's worth spending more for convenience. Mine wore down about 30% while doing my tub the first time, and about another 7% getting out some nasty persistent stains in my toilet bowl.
-- Roger Knights
Pumie Toilet Bowl Ring Remover
$7
Available from Amazon
[If you're pinching pennies, are less squeamish and don't mind rubber gloves, you might prefer the no-frills Pumie scouring & cleaning stick sans handle. -- sl]
Pumie Scouring Stick
$3
Available from Amazon
Cheap, disposable scissors sharpener
Shaped like a worry stone, this low-tech scissors sharpener features a ceramic whetstone piece set in plastic. The tiny tool (about the size of a poker chip) is designed specifically for the user to sharpen the two blades simultaneously, a process that's safe and controlled due to its design. The textured tab is to be held between thumb and forefinger. Mounted inside is a small ceramic rod that serves as the whetstone. One blade is inserted below the rod and the other above. As you draw both blades through, the open scissors close themselves. The previously reviewed Jiff V Sharpener might be the best all-around inexpensive sharpener for the home -- it can handle knives and the blade is replaceable -- but it's still too big to keep in crowded or small spaces. The SewSharp is perfect for an office desk or sewing kit. It also costs half as much as the Jiff V, so you can buy multiples to stash in crafts kits, tool drawers, and scrapbooking boxes. The life of the ceramic rod is not indefinite, so I'd recommend buying more than one anyway.
-- Anne Morris
Fiskars SewSharp Scissors Sharpener
$3.50
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by and available from Fiskars
Mega-powerful, hand juicer
Compared to all the kitchen gadgets gathering dust in our cupboards, this glorified lever is the most efficient, easiest to clean, and most satisfying to use. It has a simple design, few moving parts, and a removable cup to catch the drips. It doesn't spew flecks of fruit all over the wall and there's no messy pulp to mop up. With no motor to burn out, this industrial-strength juicer works just as well as when we bought it from a restaurant supply store two years ago -- and we use it an average of twice a week, depending on what citrus is in season. We also own a Black & Decker electric model (it now has a blown-out motor), a Juiceman Jr., a wooden hand reamer, and a little metal one you insert into a lemon just for a squeeze. With its powerful six-inch lever, the Hamilton remains our absolute favorite. In the dark winter months, when the backyard tree gives you lemons... well, you know the rest.
-- Raquel Maria Dillon
Hamilton Beach Commercial Juicer
$170
Available from Amazon
Or $136 from Instawares
Manufactured by Hamilton Beach
Feet-strengthening shoes
MBT Shoes may be goofy-looking and pricey, but they really work. By mimicking the unstable natural environment we lived in before paving over everything, the shoes strengthen your feet and improve your gait (other claimed improvements include posture and even weight loss, but I can only attest to foot strengthening, and also that I'm more aware of my abdomen and posterior muscles - you have to tighten them a bit as you walk). The MBTs (Masai Barefoot Technology) aren't meant to mimic "barefoot" shoes like the Nike Free, Vibram Five Fingers or the VIVObarefoot. These are a great option for someone with compromised feet (or ankles) who might have problems going the barefoot route at first. Also, they aren't really meant to be worn off paving as they intentionally cause instability that isn't appropriate for hiking (though they do come in a "hiking" boot and other styles).
A rounded midsole creates the "pivot" of the shoes. This curved bottom makes it so that your heel and toe cannot hit the ground at the same time. As you walk, you step on your mid-foot, not the heel, and roll over the pivot. This not only distributes pressure with each step, but also trains you to focus on balancing. When I'm standing around I'll find myself pivoting back and forth on them, which I imagine must also help your back and legs as you change angles. Standing up on the subway in the MBTs is quite challenging sometimes. The best way I've found to stabilize myself is to keep one foot flexed forward on the toes and the other back on the heel. I wouldn't want to run full out in them, but you can jog a bit to catch a light before it changes. When I started karate a few years ago I began having pain in my feet, which I eventually attributed to plantar fasciitis (an inflammation of the thick tissue that supports the arch). I went to a podiatrist who prescribed custom orthotics, but I felt they were just treating the symptom, not curing the problem. Eventually I found the MBT shoes, bought a pair and went to an hour-long training class. The class isn't necessary, but it helped me understand why and how the shoes should work (the shoes also came with a DVD, which wasn't as informative). I learned there are several muscles along the bottom of the foot, and they weaken from lack of use over time, causing the foot to lengthen and flatten, and eventually causing a pulling of the fascia. The MBTs require you to use those muscles again (and even cause your foot length to decrease somewhat), which alleviates strain. I've had my shoes two years. I wore them much of the time for a couple of months, and now I wear them a few times a week. They're still going strong, and my foot pain has disappeared. This fall I tried a 5-mile hike barefoot for the first time ever. While my feet were a bit tender, they felt strong the entire way.
-- Stanton Teters
MBT Physiological Footwear
$160 - $265 (depends on style)
Available from Walker's Warehouse
Also Amazon (only some models)
Manufactured by Swiss Masai
Encyclopedia for (bright) green living
Chasing a guilt-free, consumption-rich lifestyle can be exhausting. Managing your ecological footprint, however, isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. It starts with incremental change(s) - or, as this book suggests, it first necessitates a certain awareness of your environment, the objects in it, and the origins, travels and projected lifespan of said objects. Fittingly, the book begins with a chapter on "Stuff" (and, incidentally, the Guide was printed on recycled paper and wind power credits were purchased to account for the energy it took to print each copy). One of seven sections transposed from the Worldchanging blog (Shelter, Cities, Community, Business, Politics and Planet are the other six), "Stuff" alone left me dumbfounded as I perused my home. Nevertheless, the book's steadfast optimism and do-what-you-can attitude rescues it from the preachy, doom-and-gloom self-righteousness that can plague a lot of 'environmentalist' works. The Guide also provides informative sketches of communities far and wide that are exploring and enacting change of all types. It's a good introductory resource on a staggering range of material -- everything from biomimicry to freecycling, citizen science and social entrepreneurship to prefab and Brazil's telecentros. If you happen to know each of those in detail, there's more than 500 pages of other ideas (plus dozens of other books and sites highlighted within). Sure you could just tune into the blog, but owning a physical, inspirational snapshot of where we're at now means you can revisit it in time, if only to see what sticks.
-- Steven Leckart
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Alex Steffen (Edited), Al Gore (Foreword), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)
2006, 608 pages
$25
Available from Amazon
Also independent bookstores near you
[DISCLOSURE: Kevin Kelly's name is one of several that appear on the jacket cover of this book and within.
Yes, he publishes Cool Tools. No, he didn't give me the book or suggest I cover it. -- sl]
Sample excerpts:
Good intentions are great, but remember that only passion changes the world. There are more avenues for action than even the most motivated overachiever among us could ever pursue. So we shouldn't try to do everything: we should try to do the right things. When we seize the chance to make changes that are both important and speak to us as people, we transcend good intentions and more meaningfully express who we are. Why be boring? Why follow other people's instructions for designing a better life? The world needs more passionate people, deeply engaged with the business of designing their own lives in ways that speak to them. From passion comes creativity, and from creativity come better answers.
The equation we should all follow is this: do the easy things, then do a few more challenging things that we really believe in and enjoy. If we're home repair geeks, we should green our homes. If we're policy geeks, we should find the best practices around, adopt them, and improve them. If we're fashion geeks, we should show the world exactly how fabulous dressing green can be. If we're business geeks, we should make our fortunes selling a sustainable product the world really needs. If we're gardening geeks, we should make the yards in our care thrum with life. The world doesn't need our suffering, it needs our shining examples, and every one of us has an example to set.
*
How can we tell if the two-by-four we're about to purchase came from a muddy clear-cut or a careful, selective harvest? Did it have the tree's equivalent of a happy, cage-free, grass-fed life?
Forestry nerds spent the better part of the mid-1990s figuring out how a wood buyer could answer those questions. The result was a system of third-party certification, in which a trusted entity separate from both the buyer and the timber industry vouches for the wood. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - an independent agency including environmentalists, foresters, and indigenous peoples - sets the standard. Accredited audit firms inspect forests and mills; the ones that pass may affix the FSC trademark to their wood. Globally, 168 million acres (68 million hectares) are currently certified. It may sound like a lot, but combined, that worldwide total only actually equals the size of Texas...
Beware of imitations: a year after FSC started up, Big Timber's main trade association, the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), created its own standard, called the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI). For all its slick public relations, SFI has yet to shake its reputation as an industry greenwashing group. The tip-off? Every last member of the AF&PA, from International Paper on down, has won certification, despite their widespread practices of clear-cutting and raising single-species tree farms.
*
Seafood Watch, a program launched by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, has created a concise, informative list to help fish lovers keep track of which species we can grill free of cares, and which are ecological no-no's. The Californian aquarium offers this information to visitors on a wallet-sized reference card. It can also be downloaded or requested from the aquarium's Web site... Updated regularly to reflect improvements and declines in fish populations, the searchable online Seafood Guide has detailed information on the ecological status and nutritional value of different species of wild and farmed seafood.
*
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Communist Cuba not only lost its biggest buyer (the Soviet Union had paid above-market rates for Cuban industrial-agriculture products such as sugar), but it also found itself faced with a U.S. embargo, and at a distinct advantage in the global economy. As a result, Cuba had no money with which to buy oil, fertilizers, or pesticides - the main ingredients in factory farming.
One result was hunger. In 1989 Cubans were consuming an average of 3,000 calories per day; by 1993 that number had dropped to 1,900 - the equivalent of skipping one meal. The Cuban response to this crisis, born out of necessity, was to create a system of sustainable agriculture that was not reliant on fossil fuels or global shipping systems...
The government instituted a program that turned Havana's many vacant lots into farms or community gardens, virtually handing the land off to anyone who agreed to turn it into a viable food source. This scheme was so successful - many neighborhoods were able to produce at least 30 percent of their own food - that it quickly spread to other cities. Today, Havana's crumbling buildings are stitched together with farms and gardens. Forty-one percent of Havana's urban area is used for agriculture, and the city generates 51 percent of Cuba's vegetables...
Best of all, most of what Cuba produces is de factor organic, because the lack of available pesticides and fertilizers meant that scientists and farmers had to devise ways of protecting and controlling crops using only what nature provided.
More...
Bathroom Hygiene Attachment
I've never felt completely clean after taking care of the paperwork end of visiting the restroom. This bidet attachment is cool because it fits on most toilets, is really cheap compared to a standard bidet, is easy to install and doesn't require you to modify the plumbing.
Just remove the toilet seat, place the bidet on the bowl, put the toilet seat back on top of the brackets that hold the bidet, and use the longer bolts (supplied) to tighten the seat and bidet to the bowl. As far as the water connection, simply introduce a valve into the tubing in between the pipe coming out of the wall and where it enters the bottom of the toilet tank. There is a pressure dial off to the right of the seat (it allows you to go to the full pressure of the water coming out of the wall, so be careful!). The higher priced models have heaters, but that requires either patching into a hot water line or snaking an electrical cord around your bathroom for the models that come with mini hot water heaters. For me the basic, inexpensive one works just great, and the ease of installation was important (I am not the slickest with tools). The only maintenance I do is spray the bidet nozzle with a bleach/water mixture whenever we clean the toilet. I have used mine in three different houses in the last two years, and it's truly enhanced my life. Why take two showers a day unless you really have to?
-- Ryan Combs
BB-50 Natural Water Bio-Bidet
$79
Available from PlumbingSupply.com
(scroll down)
Previously available from Amazon
Manufactured by UCI, The Bidet Company
5-minute breakfast sandwiches
This toaster is the same price and occupies the same amount of counter space as a basic toaster (about 8"x7"x15"), but it does much more. It can poach one egg or boil up to four, and there's a tray for simultaneously warming meat or veggie sausage. While the toaster toasts quite well (it's great for plain toast, too), the real selling point is how convenient it is. I just put a few tablespoons of water in the heating tray, spritz the poaching tray with a little non-stick spray, add some water (the toaster comes with a special measuring cup), crack the egg, pop in the toast, and return in about 5 minutes when everything's ready for quick assembly and consumption. The toaster also calls for less clean up. Wiping out the poaching, heat and meat trays takes a minute, and there's even a tray for crumbs. I don't ever want to own another toaster.
-- Tim Plumley
Back to Basics Toaster & Egg Poacher
$40
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Back To Basics
Pacifier for administering meds
My infant daughter has acid-reflux and has to take Zantac a couple of times every day. Although she'll take it straight out of a medicine dropper, she always makes a terrible face and winds up spitting out a good portion (it's bitter -- even with the mint flavoring). This dispenser takes advantage of her natural tendency to suck: the medicine reaches the farthest into her mouth. I thought it seemed a little mean to use something she associates with comfort to give her something she'd hate, but after a few weeks of seeing those faces, I decided it'd be worth trying. The pacifier was a little big for her mouth when she was a couple of months old but she took it just fine, and, at almost five months, she's grown into it. Occasionally, if she's very tired and she mouths but doesn't suck on the pacifier, we use the plunger to push it on in. Either way, she hasn't made a single bad face since we've been using it, and I don't have to mop up all the Zantac she used to spit back out. I read a review of a similar product -- the same concept executed by another company. People complained the other one leaked. This is now my second medicine pacifier (I lost the first one on a road trip), and neither has leaked. This is some of the best $6 I've spent in baby things.
-- Amanda Long
Kidz-Med Medicine Dispenser
$6
Available from Walgreens
Manufactured by Kidz-Med, Inc.
Sleep comfort
The British and Chinese long-ago figured out that cold feet make for restless sleep. A hot water bottle is the solution. If you can get past the grandfatherly grandmotherly image, putting one at your feet (wrap in an old t-shirt to avoid the feel of rubber/plastic) will add much to your sleeping comfort. Available from most any drugstore, though I like the British 2-quart $10 version. If you're married, get two to avoid territorial disputes.
-- Vince Crisci
Rubber Hot Water Bottle
$11
Available from Home Trends
[News to me, but apparently there's a small cottage industry making plush covers for hot water bottles. What, you don't want to use "an old t-shirt" to cover the bottle? A few examples below. -- KK]
  
JC Uniforms
Big Mountain Shoppe
Sarengeti
North Style
The Vermont Country Store
Whole house music system
Music playing simultaneously in every room of your house is a luxurious experience, and decidedly different from a song playing in a single room. Music in a room is a dim, blurry sonic echo if you're not in front of the speakers. But music everywhere is an environment that envelopes you as you go about your day. Of course to get this experience, you could run speaker wire to a second room and connect up a second set of speakers, but that's not the same enveloping sonic goodness of a whole house system.
Used to be whole-house music systems were only for the very rich. You needed a rack of amplifiers (two channels for every room), a pre-amp, switcher, control unit, and then in-room controllers either hand-held or built into the walls, plus cabling from the speakers in each room homerunned back to the equipment, which probably needed its own closet because there was so much of it, it was so loud, and so hot. Crestron, Niles and others have made good money catering to this rarefied market. But the systems are pretty bespoke (there is no standard OS, the equipment is not interchangeable, you need an installer to set them up, you had to destroy walls to run cables, etc.), they were inherently less reliable than mass produced equipment, and they were, as I said, so expensive (as in $20-50K and up for equipment alone, plus design and installer time in addition) that only the wealthy could afford them. Oh, and none of them can connect to the consumer music server standard that we all use and love -- iTunes. That's right, they all use proprietary or non-Apple servers.
That was then. But now if you want a whole house music system, you have a much lower cost, more reliable, and more functional alternative: Sonos. It isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than the previous bespoke solutions. It's dead easy to install -- literally anyone can do it. It connects seamlessly to the iTunes music library, as well as giving you access to internet radio stations. And it's just completely thought out. Sonos is one of the two best consumer electronic products ever created, the other being the Garmin Nuvi.
Sonos comes in two flavors: with and without amplifiers. Either can connect via ethernet or wirelessly to your computer with its iTunes library (you can also use other libraries if you want). The Sonos unamplified units -- smaller than an Apple Mini -- mate with amplifiers (or receivers) you probably already have that are connected to speakers. The Sonos amplified units (think the size of a big old family bible) drive speakers where you don't already have amps. Both type of units talk to each other via a mesh network. You can lash up to 32 of the beasts together if you're so inclined. The sound across the entire network is in perfect sync. (Airport Express, in contrast, has a limit of, I believe three units, because it can't handle the data in way that can keep the units delivering the sound simultaneously without lags). And the fidelity is exemplary -- I rip all my music to Appleloss, and every room is playing music as if the CD is present, not ripped to a server at the other end of the house.
How easy is it to set up? You can install the software and set up half-a-dozen of these units in an hour. Once installed, the systems are rock solid. And if you ever have problems, online and telephone support is conscientious, even exemplary. You get the feeling they really want you to have your system working right, and for you to be happy.
You can control the whole system from your computer, selecting music and playing it in one, all, or a combination of rooms, at different volumes for each room. For instance, you can play different music in each room; or you can play music from your iTunes library in one room, or an internet radio station in another, etc. A better way to control the Sonos system is with the Sonos wireless handheld controller, which has a scroll wheel like the iPod and a color LCD screen which provides all the functionality of the Sonos computer software. You don't need one per room -- per floor is more like it.
Sonos is a lot cheaper than the old bespoke whole house system. Two unamplified players with one handheld controller will run you $1000. You still need an amp and speakers for each player. Or you can buy two amplified players (and the amps are decent 50W units) and one controller for $1200. Each extra controller will run $400, each unamplified player $350, and each amplified player $500. And Sonos has a deal with Rhapsody where you can subscribe to their million song library for $10 a month (sound quality is only mediocre MP3, but being able to sample virtually all current releases for ten bucks a month is pretty compelling).
Sonos: Not cheap, but an entirely more affordable luxury than whole house music systems used to be.
-- Louis Rossetto
Sonos
$1,000 and up
Available from Sonos
Best way to waterproof leather
Sno Seal waterproofs leather products. The beeswax formula is long lasting, doesn't harm or weaken leather like animal fat waterproofing products do, and still allows the leather to breath. Easily applied by heating your leather boots with a hair dryer and simply rubbing Sno-Seal into the leather.
I haven't seen or used another product as good. I've been using it for the last tens years on the four pairs of prospector Gortex/leather boots that I've owned. Because of the Sno-Seal I wear out the soles (multiple times) before the leather shows any kind of deterioration.
A 3 1/2 oz. (100g) tub of the stuff will last me two years for one pair of boots, reapplying every three to four months, depending on use.
-- Dave Babcock
Sno-Seal
$3.50 for 8 oz.
Available from Amazon
Also from REI
Manufactured by Atsko
How to make an action film
The DV Rebel's Guide is currently the best how-to-guide for making films on a budget. It supercedes the former low-rent filmmaking guide, Rick Schmidt's Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices, and his followup Extreme DV. This new fantastic manual written by Stu Maschwitz, a co-founder of the maverick special effects company The Orphanage, focuses exactly where budget filmmakers should be. Forget about film, and all its needs. Instead embrace inexpensive HD video and off-the-shelf professional software, like After Effects. This guide rightfully assumes that more than half of your cinematic effort will take place in front of a computer -- even on a film without special effects. The good news is that an HD camera and full software suite are tools within reach of a dedicated amateur.
Rebel's doesn't cover important artistic issues like gaining self-confidence in your film idea, raising money, fine tuning scripts and honing your hustling skills because these are covered in other books (especially in What They Don't Teach You at Film School). What Rebel's Guide does cover in practical depth is the technical aspects of making a quality film for as little money as possible. Even better, it's aimed at an action film, which most budget guides shy from.
The advice is pithy, spot on, practical, honest, and communicated extremely clearly. It uses lots of photo stills in the book and comes with its own DVD of examples. It very smartly assumes that if you are making a film, you have a Netflix account and will point you to specific example scenes in other films on DVD. And since half of filmmaking is now the work of software, the DVD also includes tutorials and helpful scripts for After Effects. It feels like a workshop lead by someone whose made a few films that look fantastic but cost almost nothing, and that is what it is.
One important point Maschwitz emphasizes: The cheap tricks and rebel attitude he promotes in this book are not only for beginners and starving artists, but are used by the pros when they can. This is another way of saying that, as in other media, the line between the tools and techniques available to amateurs and professionals has been drastically blurred. With skill and moxie, a "used car" budget, and the tools and techniques described in this very fine book, you (the You on the cover of Time!) can make a film qualified for theatrical release.
-- KK
The DV Rebel's Guide
Stu Maschwitz
2006, 360 pages
$30
Available from Amazon
Sample excerpts:
I don't think many people realize how often "stolen" shots wind up in big-budget productions. Many famous commercial directors have their own small 35mm camera packages for augmenting their million-dollar shoots. In my days at Industrial Light & Magic, I worked on a Pepsi commercial where shots nabbed without permits out of the back of a van were intercut with state-of-the-art visual effects.
*
Grip Alfred Wentzel pushes camera operator Sunel Haasbroek, wielding a Silicone Imaging camera, for the film Spoon. Photo provided by the film's directors, Sharlto Copely and Simon Hansen.
*
The Pickup Truck Loophole
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV, but I do remember one bit of legal advice that I've put to use a few times. Most cities, including Los Angeles, have a definition of what kind of shooting requires a permit. If you want to shoot on public streets or sidewalks, you will need a permit if you "put down sticks," which is to say, set up a tripod. As soon as you plop a piece of gear on city property, they want you to go legit with the paperwork.
One popular workaround for this is to eschew the sticks and shoot handheld. Reasonable, but not always conducive to the production value we're trying to exude. A much cooler solution is to set up your tripod in the back of a pickup truck. This is an amazing trick because it give you both a tripod and a dolly. You can actually drive down the street and get a real classy tracking shot following your talent, all without asking permission.
*
Time is your greatest advantage over the Hollywood big boys. If they want it to rain, they rent rain towers at hundreds of dollars per day and make it rain on the day they need it to. A week later it rains for real and they lose a day or move to a cover set. You just wait for the rain and shoot on that day -- and your free rain looks way better than their million-dollar rain! The DV Rebel melts down time and re-forms it into production value.
*
What's amazing about filling a room with smoke is that in person it seems so stupid and obvious. But look through your viewfinder and something magical happens. Through your camera, you don't see smoke. You just see a scene that looks more like a movie. Smoke is one of those dirty tricks that really works. It makes things seem larger than life. It gives your images depth. It gives light a physical presence in your film. And perhaps surprisingly, smoke can actually light your scene for you.
When the fire alarm goes off, that's just about the right amount of smoke to enhance your production value.
More...
Omnivorous composting
I was more burdened by wet garbage than I thought, and more relieved than I expected by a fiendishly simple device called the Green Cone.
Regular composters are notoriously picky: no bones, no meat, no oil, no avocado pits or shells, no citrus peels, no dairy products. The Green Cone happily devours all that stuff, which means that pretty much all your kitchen waste can go in it, right now. File and forget.
All you need is some yard and a spot that gets sunshine. The Cone's perforated plastic basket is sunk two feet into the ground. The Cone stands 28 inches above the ground, collecting sun warmth to encourage the bacteria down below who are chowing on the garbage and seeping the resultant nutrients into the soil. Thanks to the ground seal around the basket, there's no smell at all, except when you open the top of the Cone to add more yummy garbage for the microbes.
Garden wastes should not go in the Cone, because they would overwhelm it with volume. Nor should paper or plastic products, which is about all you'll have left in your now light and odorless kitchen trash bin.
-- Stewart Brand
Green Cone
$160
Available from SolarCone
Best spam filter for Mac
SpamSieve is the best spam filter for the Mac. It's incredibly accurate yet invisible. I have been using it for almost three years now and its statistics show that over that time it was 99% accurate. SpamSieve is so invisible and maintenance free that I've just about forgotten about it -- despite the fact that my email has been widely posted on the web for 10 years. I don't have to open the app; it somehow sits quietly behind most email programs. My wife, who has a Mac at work, was complaining about her spam load, and I realized, "oh my gosh, you mean you don't know about SpamSieve?"
I've used some good spam filters before but they didn't learn fast enough, or needed too much attention to keep on top of their game. Like many of the best spam filters SpamSieve uses Bayesian tricks to learn from your in-box what kind of mail you approve of and what you hate. I needed only a few minutes fiddling to get it up and running, and thereafter, I merely delete the occasional stray spam with a keystroke that simultaneously scolds SpamSieve about its correct nature and sends it to the dump. Then about twice a month I go through my Junk Mail box and pluck out two or three "goods" that got through with a single keystroke that again admonishes SpanSieve of their proper state. That's it! SpamSieve also knows my friends from my address book, and it can be told about specific address or domains in hundreds of direct ways if you care to, but mostly I simply do nothing. For all that nothing I get a squeaky clean in box with a rare spam intruder.
I think the 99% batting average of my SpamSieve would be 1% better if it weren't for two factors: 1) Because of product reviews my mail is more spamish than most, and 2) in the last 6 months spammers started sending image spam (the text is a picture) which as taken SpamSieve a while to figure out. Without that temporary lapse, I think SpamSieve would filter out 100% of the correct spam. As it is I can happily live with it removing 99+%.
I am sure there must be an equivalent for Windows, but this is the one to cure spam on the Mac.
-- KK
SpamSieve
$30 (30 day free demo)
Available from C-Command
For a SpamSieve-like program for Windows, I've been using SpamBayes (with Outlook on Windows XP) for the last three years. It's brilliant enough that I've never bothered to get an update for it. It sounds like it works just like SpamSieve. I look through the junk folder every month or so for things that have been misfiled - often two or three corporate mailing list things will wind up there. I press a "Recover from Spam" button and SpamBayes moves it to my Inbox. Likewise, for the very rare spam that gets through to my Inbox, I just click a button "Delete as Spam" that teaches the add-in about something new. It's free and it works great, easily 99.5%+ accurate.
-- Colin Robertson
SpamBayes
Modest digital underwater camera
I'm delighted with this relatively inexpensive underwater digital camera. Good for submarining 10 feet deep, it's perfect for snorkeling, kayaking, canoeing, and water sports. If you are serious about underwater photography at scuba depths, this is not for you. This camera is more comparable to those one-time plastic-housed underwater film cameras we've used in the past. But being digital it has many advantages over those. First, you can see what you got (or missed) immediately. Second, you can fit several hundreds of shots in a session instead of film's 27 frames. Thirdly, you can quickly upload, share, manipulate, or print what you capture.
It's important to maintain low expectations when you photograph underwater. The light is dim, everything is in constant motion, including you, and it's hard to see the camera with a mask on. All the more reason you need to take lots of shots. The teeny-tiny flash on this camera is not enough to overcome some of those limitations. But as you can see from these photos I took on a recent trip to the Mayan Coast in Mexico, this $300 camera does a serviceable job.
The camera is quiet small and slim; it fits into a shirt pocket. Its unobtrusive waterproof seals seemed to work fine, much to my amazement. One downside is the non-standard Olympus memory card it uses; I'd rather recycle the many standard SD cards I already have. Since it has a very impressive 7.1 megapixels and a 3x optical zoom (very nice) this camera could, in theory, be used as your all-around digital camera on dry land (and it is sold that way), but I found its very sluggish refresh rate (perhaps due to the large memory card I was using) and very tiny controls to be annoying. But deep in the wet realm these annoyances are tolerable in exchange for an easy and reliable way to take underwater pictures, and as a camera I don't mind taking on a kayak or surfboard, or a dunk in the lake.
You can buy sophisticated and bulky underwater housing for some popular digital cameras like the Canon Powershots and Nikon Coolpix, but these cases -- while allowing you to go deeper -- can cost nearly as much as the Olympus 720. (Pentax makes the Optio W20, a similar camera, rated at only 5 feet deep, but using SD cards, which I have not tried, but others like.) For me this tiny clam is the cheapest way to digitally photograph underwater at shallow depths.
-- KK
Olympus Stylus 720 SW
$300
Available from Amazon
Access to human help
When you need a problem-solving human on the phone, try these numbers and their short cuts. This is the best list I've seen of 800 numbers with humans at the other end. Even better are the voice mail short cuts for each number that take you to the warm brain the quickest. Searchable with cntrl-F.
Get Human
Super large plastic bags
These are big Ziploc bags that are extra sturdy and have a carrying handle. There are two sizes: 2ft x 1.7ft for the XL size and 2ft x 2.7ft for the XXL. They only cost a few dollars.
There are probably a million uses for them. One great use we found is for our kids to bring bristol board projects to school. The bristol board is kept flat, clean and dry and is easy to carry. In the past we had to roll them up which resulted in them being curled instead of flat. Or placed in a green garbage bag to keep them dry which was awkward to carry and resulted in them being dog-eared and bent. The Big Bags would serve the same purpose for anyone who has to transport or store blueprints, prints, paintings, posters, etc.
-- Doug Jones
* Expand as needed to fit where totes won't go. Perfect for storing even your bulkiest items while helping to protect them from moisture, dust and pests. XXL holds the equivalent volume of a 75.7L tote.
Ziploc Big Bag
$5.50 for 3 XXL bags
Available from Drugstore.com
Or $7 from Amazon
Manufactured by Ziploc
Superior textile cutter
The Engel Hot Knife is fantastic for cutting and sealing synthetic ropes and textiles in one hot cut. Particularly when making kites, bags, tents, or anything with textiles this is faster by a factor of 10 than scissors, more accurate, and also seals the edges against fraying. It has two blade types, one long and arced, great for fast large things, one pointed and small for detail work. The fact it has a work light directed at the blade is a tremendous detail only the German's would have thought of including. I use it for other things as well, like sealing plastic bags and various plastic welding jobs. This is probably a misuse of the tool, but periodically I find that useful. I own two of these, and have owned them for 5+ years, and I love them.
-- Saul Griffith
Engel Hot Knife
$140, with one blade
Available from Rochford Supply
Seeking the origin of our food
This is a behavior-changing book. It explores the origin of modern North American food and challenges you, the reader, to confront the genesis of what you eat. It does not begin as you think it does. Author Pollan, now an enlightened omnivore, challenges everyone to take responsibility for their food -- no matter what it is -- by tracking its path back to the sun. If you can face the path of your food in full knowledge and be at ease with it, then happy eating! If not, then Pollan traces out interesting alternative food paths, pioneered by memorable characters full of great stories. For instance he feels obligated as a meat-eater to not only to witness the slaughter of his meat, but even to kill it himself if he can. He leads us steadily all the way down this road without ever scaring us off. As one experiment, he prepares a meal with food that he either hunted or grew himself, and again tracks its moral and energetic path to the table. Almost everyone I know who has read this book, including our family, has altered their eating habits in interesting and unexpected ways.
-- KK
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan
2006, 451 pages
$18
Available from Amazon
Sample excerpts:
Descendants of the Maya living in Mexico still sometimes refer to themselves as "the corn people." The phrase is not intended as a metaphor. Rather, it's meant to acknowledge their abiding dependence on this miraculous grass, the staple of their diet for almost nine thousand years. Forty percent of the calories a Mexican eats in a day comes directly from corn, most of it in the form of tortillas. So when a Mexican says "I am maize" or "corn walking," it is simply a statement of fact: The very substance of the Mexican's body is to a considerable extent a manifestation of this plant.
Researchers who have compared the isotopes in the flesh or hair of North Americans to those in the same tissues of Mexicans report that it is now we in the North who are the true people of corn. "When you look at the isotope ratios," Todd Dawson, a Berkeley biologist who's done this sort of research, told me, "we North Americans look like corn chips with legs." Compared to us, Mexicans today consume a far more varied carbon diet: the animals they eat still eat grass (until recently, Mexicans regarded feeding corn to livestock as a sacrilege); much of their protein comes from legumes; and they still sweeten their beverages with cane sugar.
So that's us: processed corn, walking.
*
One way to look at the breeding work going on at ranches like the Blairs' is that the contemporary beef cow is being selected for the ability to eat large quantities of corn and efficiently convert it to protein without getting too sick. The species is evolving, in other words, to help absorb the excess biomass coming off America's cornfields. But the cow's not there quite yet, and a great many feedlot cattle -- virtually all of them to one degree or another, according to several animal scientists I talked to -- are simply sick.
Cattle rarely live on feedlot diets for more than 150 days, which might be about as much as their systems can tolerate....
What keeps a feedlot animal healthy -- or healthy enough -- are antibiotics. Rumensin buffers acidity in the rumen, helping to prevent bloat and acidosis, and Tylosin, a form of erythromycin, lowers the incidence of liver infection. Most of the antibiotics sold in America today end up in animal feed, a practice that, it is now generally acknowledged (except in agriculture), is leading directly to the evolution of new antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
*
Though it was only the third week of June, the pasture beneath me had already seen several rotational turns. Before being cut earlier in the week for the hay that would feed the farm's animals though the winter, it had been grazed twice by beef cattle, which after each day-long stay had been succeeded by several hundred laying hens. They'd arrived by Eggmobile, a ramshackle portable henhouse designed and built by Salatin. Why chickens? "Because that's how it works in nature," Salatin explained. "Birds follow and clean up after herbivores." And so during their turn in the pasture, the hens had performed several ecological services for the cattle as well as the grass: They'd picked the tasty grubs and fly larvae out of the cowpats, in the process spreading the manure and eliminating parasites. (This is what Joel has in mind when he says the animals do the work around here; the hens are his "sanitation crew," the reason his cattle have no need of chemical parasiticides.) And while they were at it, nibbling on the short cattle-clipped grasses they like best, the chickens applied a few thousand pounds of nitrogen to the pasture -- and produced several thousand uncommonly rich and tasty eggs. After a few week's rest, the pasture will be grazed again, each steer turning these lush grasses into beef at the rate of two or three pounds per day.
More...
What's next for music
More than an entertaining tale about the birth of the iPod (which it is), this book is a 12-horn hallelujah chorus celebrating how this "perfect thing" is propelling music from the past into the future. What's perfect is not Apple's porcelain white gizmo, but the new roles and ways of music. Veteran tech writer Steven Levy explores this new "always on" culture with intelligence and ease.
-- KK
The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness
Steven Levy
2006, 272 pages
$17
Available from Amazon
Sample excerpts:
As The New York Times' music critic Kelefa Sanneh put it, "Obscure ain't what it used to be... it's getting harder to find any music at all that's hard to find."
*
Ive believes that a key to that Zen-like goal was the color of the original iPod. The subject of the iPod's glossy white polymer finish is something so deep that it reduces the normally articulate Ive to fits and stutters. ..."If you just think from an Apple point of view, we started out as the color company" -- here he is talking about the first iMac, which added color to what had been the drab beige prison of computing -- "and then we came out with these sort of unapologetic, perfect white products."
*
Now Jobs was reflective again. "The iPod is three years old next month," he told me. "When we started this, nobody really knew what it was, and people that did really didn't believe it would be a big hit. And when we were trying to do the iTunes Music Store, it was" -- he paused, groping for the phrase -- "such an uphill battle. Everybody in the industry [thought it wouldn't work]. It was almost impossible. And to see it blossom into what it's become, and to see U2 performing at our event, it was just --" He stopped, and an extremely rare moment passed when Steve Jobs was at a loss for what to say next. "I'm trying to think of the word," he finally said. Another long silence. "I don't have a word," he concluded, obviously moved, giving an Academy Award level performance, or both. He gave a long sigh. "When they were on," he continued, "I was sitting next to one of my close colleagues at Apple and I socked him on the leg really hard and said, 'We're going to remember this for the rest of our lives.' That's how I felt. It was really great."
Similarly, the music industry will remember iPod for the rest of its life. However long that is.
*
Every time a song arrives in this musical DNA shop, an analyst will devote twenty to thirty minutes of intense concentration to identifying as many as four hundred distinct variables, or "genes". Just to capture the emotional metrics of the singing voice, there are thirty-two variables-- things like timbre, vibrato, pitch, and range. "Any voice can be understood as the combination of these genes," says Westergren. When this system is applied to all the instruments as well as the traits of the song -- tempo, amplitude, etc -- the analyst produces a precis. if done right, says Westergren, another analyst can look at and virtually play the whole song in his or her head. More to the point, using this Music Genome Project, you can automate what a disk-jocky does to customize a set according to your tastes.
Two years inside a bottle
The grand experiment known as Biosphere 2 -- in which eight people, along with many animals and plants, locked themselves for two years into an optimistically self-sustaining glass dome -- has not gotten the credit it deserves. This semi-scientific, semi-theatrical adventure is a vitally important experiment for any long term space venture, and a fantastic lab for planetary studies. The Biosphere 2 trial yielded many insights, both of nature and human nature, but because it was marred by pathological secrecy, personality flaws, and unexpected technical glitches, its achievements were ignored in science and overlooked by the press. I've written a lot about the scientific lessons of Biosphere 2, but nothing about the "human experiment" because the insiders were not talking. Now at least one of them is.
The kind of mavericks needed for any wild-eye utopian undertaking are usually remarkable and remarkably flawed. This hairy experiment was no exception. Its large-scale audacity was guaranteed to produce large-scale doses of human drama, which is what eventually filled the Biosphere 2. This book, written by one of the participants, is unflinching in its honesty and does a fair job of recounting the intense two-year journey of the eight inside, and what was learned. Before you set off for the stars, read this.
-- KK
The Human Experiment: Two years and twenty minutes inside Biosphere 2
Jane Poynter
2006, 368 pages
$19
Available from Amazon
Author's website
Sample excerpts:
What confused people all the more was that Biosphere 2's magic -- and possibly its Achilles' heel -- was that it was not conceived as any single thing, making it impossible to pigeonhole. It was a scientific project, a tool for furthering our knowledge of ecosystems and systems ecology. It was an artistic expression in its extraordinary architecture. It was business enterprise, meant to make money from spin-off technologies and later, tourism. It was an educational tool to inspire people of all ages. And it was an engineering project, developing a prototype for long-duration, self-sustaining space bases. If you ask twenty people who were part of the project what the aim of it was, you would receive close to twenty different responses.
So, the question remains, were we a cult?
The real difficulty in honestly answering that question lies in the definition of cult. The meaning is so diffuse that it is nearly useless. However, the predominant flavor of the word is pejorative, which I wholeheartedly reject. Those who study cults today make a clear distinction between dangerous cults and other forms of tight-knit groups that can include corporations.
Some of the common denominators between definitions of cults did fit our group. There is usually a domineering charismatic leader, a sense of isolationism, and a central ideal. John had been our unquestioned leader and was increasingly authoritarian. Before coming to Biosphere 2, I had seen John only a few times each year on his rounds through each IE project. He could be mean and humiliating, but he was also funny and inspiring. But now John remained at Biosphere 2 most of the time. His grip on the group tightened with every piece of bad news.
The isolationist attitude was particularly acute toward people who questioned our way of life. Our central ideal was the way of life itself. But I can say unequivocally that we were not a cult if the definition includes brainwashing and loss of individuality. And we certainly were not a cult based on G. I. Gurdjieff -- an early-twentieth-century American mystic with followers in Europe and America -- as some claimed who heard that we read some of his works.
*
Here I am showing off newborn triplet goats. Vision, the goat in the foreground, was one of four female African pigmy goats. Along with a male goat, Buffalo Bill, chickens and pigs also ran around the animal bay.
More...
When a couple of the little rubber feet (LRF) came off the bottom of my laptop, I tried without success to re-attach the small bits of rubber with "super glue", rubber cement, and a hot-glue gun. After the last attempt, I realized that the rubbery material used with the hot-glue gun could by itself serve as an LRF replacement. This worked so well I ended up ripping out the still-attached LRFs. By now the hot-glue replacements have served longer than the original LRFs.
-- Preston L. Bannister
***************
I had a white board with old old writing on it - I tried Windex, alcohol, etc, to little avail, then my girlfriend suggested using a whiteboard marker - they are full of the correct solvent! Just color over what you want to erase and wipe it away. Doh!
-- David Spargur
***************
Eighth inch shock cord is wonderful stuff. However, it can be hard to keep knots in shock cord. I use cable ties to fasten loops in shock cord, and I have never had a cable-tied loop slip. Shock cord loops have body, so it is easy to clip things into them and easy to throw a shock cord loop over a hook, they absorb shock, and it does not hurt if you fall on them. I first saw this trick being used to attach rescue whistles to life preservers; since the shock cord stretches, the whistle does not dangle too much (a long length of cord might wrap around your throat) but the whistle can be pulled up to the mouth. Since then, I have found that cable-tied shock cord loops are great for key rings, to use to hang things on wall hooks, as lanyards, and to elastically attach valuables, such as cameras, to belt loops to discourage theft while keeping the camera ready to use. And of course, you can cable-tie loops to the ends of a length of shock cord and use it as a clothesline.
-- Jock Chung
***************
I rub my nose with my finger and put the tip of my finger in a soda or beer that has too much foam. The oil from my nose does a remarkable job of getting rid of the foam quickly so I can drink sooner.
-- Penley McQueen
***************
Sure, you can buy special plastic clips to keep your snack bags closed, and you can use clothespins -- but the chip-clips are notoriously expensive and easily broken, and clothespins are bulky and don't always stay put. But binder clips, those spring steel mini-clamps available at any office supply store, are perfect for resealing opened bags of food -- whether dry snacks or frozen food. They're so strong, you can fold your bag in at the corners and roll it down to keep things really airtight. You can even use them to close the end of an open cardboard container after folding it over. These versatile little jaws come in different sizes and have 1001 uses -- anywhere you need to clamp something. And the handles can be removed by squeezing them and removing them from their hinges for an even smaller footprint.
-- Tom Lundin
***************
When your container of shaving oil is empty, try filling it with olive oil from the kitchen instead of spending $15 on a new stuff. I discovered that when I ran out a few years ago & I haven't looked back since. Olive oil does just as good a job and costs almost nothing per shave. People have been shaving with olive oil for thousands of years, there's no reason not to continue doing so.
-- Mark James
***************
When I need to solder a connection to a leaky pipe, I just stick a piece of bread into the pipe to sop up the drips while I fire up the blowtorch.
-- RW
To track whether the dishes in your washer are clean, use a wet erase marker to write "Dirty" or make a fancy "D" on the inside door of your dishwasher when loading dirty dishes. When you run the dishwasher the mark washes away, so you'll know they are clean.
-- Carl DeCesare
*************
Don't pay for a anti-fogging bathroom mirror! The mirror fogs because the glass temperature is colder than the air causing the moisture dissolved in the air to condense. Just wipe the off the excess condensation and lightly blowdry the mirror and it will stay fog-free. Don't overdo it with the blow-dryer -- you don't want the mirror to crack from uneven expansion.
-- David Spargur
*************
I've moved many many times, and this hint has saved my sanity. Whether you're using professional movers or relying on your (good) friends, you can use this hint.
In your new place, pick a space that is out of the way, such as a spare bedroom, the basement or garage, and put every box there. I mean every. single. box. If it says kitchen, put it there. Bedroom? Put it there. Bathroom? Put it there. If you can manage it, you can loosely group the boxes there by room. But do not let a single box infiltrate the rest of your living space.
Without those boxes in the way, you can slide your furniture around until you have it situated the way you like without boxes getting in the way, and voila, your space is instantly livable.
Then you start emptying boxes one by one. As a box is emptied, break it down and toss it, recycle it or store it. You'll find you're fully moved in in very short order, and if you're not, nobody can tell but you!
-- Katherine B
*************
Wintergreen oil (methyl salicylate) is the most penetrating of all penetrating oils. It is available at most drugstores at minimal cost. If you work on old machinery that is anywhere near saltwater (or salted highways) it's an essential weapon in tackling otherwise hopelessly rusted/frozen threads. It smells good, and though toxic and not to be kept within reach of children, is intended for topical application to human skin.
-- George Dyson
*************
Here is a much simpler way to keep paintbrushes soft, especially between coats: Don't clean them, put them in a plastic bag, and put them in the freezer. You can start painting with them right away, and when you are done, just put them in again. Eventually, you want to clean them (if you are changing colors, for instance) but I have had paintbrushes in the freezer for months and they are just fine when you take them out again.
-- Espen Andersen
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