100 pieces of advice/NEAT/Jury Duty

Recomendo - issue #372

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100 pieces of advice

I love reading people’s collections of advice and have recommended many of them in Recomendo. Here’s a list called 100 Things I Know, by writer and artist Mari Andrew. 

Examples:

• If you’re in an argument that’s going in circles, suggest switching roles: “I make your point, and you make mine.” It helps with empathy, yes, but also brings humor and levity to a strained situation.
• If you’re stuck in a place or situation you hate, see what you can do there for others. I learned this through experience: When I hated working at a law firm, I’d think of ways to brighten my co-workers’ days. When I hated living in [City Name Redacted], I signed up to teach ESL lessons.
• If you never learned how to dance at parties/weddings/clubs, you can teach yourself by watching videos of Motown and girl groups of the 60s. The songs are slow and the moves are simple enough to follow along to. You’ll get the rhythm and the basics down, then it’s easy to start embellishing with your own style. I identify as a good dancer, and I learned everything I know from spending a summer watching live performances of The Supremes.

— MF

Easy ways to expend energy

I recently learned the concept of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)  which refers to energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. I’ve always been aware of it, I just never knew the name for it and since I’ve learned what NEAT is, I started finding opportunities to go out of my way to “move” more. This NPR article outlines the science behind it and all the benefits. It’s not a substitute for exercise but it is the most accessible and practical way to increase physical activity. Examples of NEAT includes using a standing desk, walking to work or parking far away from buildings, cleaning the house, or fidgeting while sitting down. — CD 

Real-life Truman Show

For laughs and for a sweet time watch a real-life Truman Show, the 8-part series Jury Duty on Amazon. Our unsuspecting hero is serving on a fake jury, where everyone else – judge, lawyers, witnesses, clerks and other jurors – are all actors.  Every one of the hundreds of people surrounding him are in on the fiction, except him. The level of deceit is epic. They conspire to keep comedic things happening every hour, but all the while our hero keeps doing the right things. He turns out to be a perfect juror, and as you go through the entire trial you also get a good lesson about the American jury system. The humor is honest, one surprise after another. — KK

Happy hotline 

PEPTOC HOTLINE is probably the cutest hotline to ever exist. It offers prerecorded life advice and pep talks from K-6th elementary school students from Healdsburg, California. The phone number is a local US number 707-8PEPTOC. Press number: 1 if you’re frustrated, 2 for life advice, 4 for children laughing with delight and 6 for how awesome you look. My favorite advice I heard from a young student was: “If you’re feeling hurt just take a sip of water. If you’re feeling bad and deflated just go somewhere and do what you like best — it reinflates you.” I heard about this in the the Creative Mornings newsletter and am just passing on the cheer. — CD 

Always sharp pencils

It’s a small thing, but in my workshop and studio I use Paper Mate Sharpwriter mechanical pencils to mark and measure. They are cheap (35 cents), super lightweight, very finely precise, have a good eraser, and are forever sharp by simply rotating the end. They are cheap enough that I have them everywhere, and wouldn’t care if I lost one, but they are bright yellow and none of them have ever broken. I hear they are favored by students as well. — KK

Solid shelf

The Amazon Basics 5-Shelf Adjustable Heavy Duty Storage Shelving Unit was just what we needed to store kitchen appliances. It’s made from stainless steel, and plated with chrome, and is very sturdy. We just bought another one for our closet. Best of all, it was easy to assemble. — MF

— Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson

08/27/23

Graham Briggs, Nanikore.net

Show and Tell #380: Graham Briggs

Graham Briggs was born in northern England in the fishing town of Grimsby. For most of the last 2 decades he’s lived in Japan, both in Tokyo and on the Pacific Coast. Most of his career has been in different engineering fields and currently works for a web marketplace company. Hobbies include motorcycling, snowboarding and photography.

TOOLS:
0:00 – Intro
0:43 – Pinlock Motorcycle Visor
5:35 – Nelson Rigg motorbike cover
9:36 – Manfrotto Monopod
14:05 – Kuriviger Online Map and Route Tool

Other Links:
Photo training tour in Tokyo

To sign up to be a guest on the show, please fill out this form.

08/25/23

Argentina’s Currency Woes/Muddy Water Filter/Nomad Stats

Nomadico issue #66

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

Argentina’s Mess Gets Messier

You might want to book that trip to Argentina soon before the economy collapses. The government just devalued their official currency rate 18% and raised interest rates to 118% (not a typo). This after a libertarian candidate scored the highest in a primary vote–a candidate who promises to dollarize the monetary system (like Ecuador did) and eliminate the central bank. If you go, bring lots of hard currency cash.

Lifestraw Water Filters

I caught up with some reps from Lifestraw at a travel conference recently and watched them suck dirty water through their signature product as a demo. It’s an easy-to-pack item for backcountry explorers and hikers. For more standard travel, get one of their Go Series bottles with a built-in purifier filter.

Digital Nomad Stats

This article was last updated in April, but there are lots of fun and sometimes surprising statistics in here that I saw confirmed at the Nomad Fest of 700+ people I attended this summer. Some 56% of remote workers are North American and 27% are from Europe, leaving 17% for the rest of the world. These aren’t broke backpackers: the median annual income is $85K. 90% have a formal education, 2/3 are single, and nearly half are self-employed.

Chimp Empire

Here’s something unique to binge-watch on Netflix. A Kevin Kelly mention in Recomendo put Chimp Empire at the top of my viewing list and it’s incredible. It’s a 4-episode nature documentary filmed in a jungle in Uganda, but one with a narrative plot that’s more Sopranos or Succession than Animal Kingdom.

08/24/23

Building a “Fractal Chair” from a 1913 patent

Gar's Tips & Tools - Issue #163

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.

– Send me a tip or tool recommendation.

–Tell me a shop tale.

-Buy my books (Tips and Tales from the Workshop Vol. 1, Vol. 2).

–Advertise your product, service, newsletter, app, book, tool, or anything you’d like to share with GT&T readers.

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Building a “Fractal Chair” from a 1913 patent

Several years ago, YouTuber Eric Tozzi of Hand Tool Rescue lit up the maker internet with his introduction and restoration of the “intimate contact vise,” a rare 1913 vise for “obtaining intimate contact with, engaging, clamping bodies of any shape” [see Patent here]. Eric dubbed it the “fractal vise.” Since then, dozens of makers have created 3D printable versions and versions made from various other materials. And these vises are now available for purchase via Alibaba and elsewhere. In this video, Eric reveals that the 1913 patent holder also submitted a patent for an…um intimate contact chair. So, of course, he needed to try and recreate one. Will it turn out to be the mother of all butt-pinchers? Tune in and find out.

Getting Your Electronics Projects Onto the Internet

In this video from Becky Stern for Digi-Key, she looks at the different options available for getting your microcontroller project connected to the internet. She runs through some of the different microcontrollers you can use (ESP8266, ESP32, Arduino, Particle, Pico), cool projects you can connect to (like Cheerlights), cloud services for visualizing sensor data, including Arduino Cloud, Adafruit IO, and ThingSpeak, and more. Connecting an electronics project you made to the Big Wide Muddy of the global internet carries a unique little thrill (beyond the project’s utility). If you’re new to the Internet of Things (IoT), this video is a great introduction to connecting your projects.

Making Carving Tools from Old Bandsaw Blades

Bumped into this on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nick Kettman (@modulusprops)

“Price: Low to High” is Your Friend

Several years ago, I ordered a set of 5 “premium” hobby sanding sticks for $14 on Amazon. I’ve used them for years and they’ve served me well, but the commonly-used sticks are now bereft of grit. I was about to order a new set when I decided to look and see what other product options were available in the sanding sticks category. I started by selecting “Price: Low to High.” I found a well-reviewed set of 20 sticks for $7.50 (that’s .38 instead of $2.80 per stick). I bought them and they’re great. Perfect for what I need (I use them for working with styrene) and for a lot less money. So, the next time you go to buy something on Amazon, don’t forget to organize your search low-to-high (and then choose the highest-rated, lowest-priced item that looks like it will serve your needs).

The Tool on Wire Strippers You May Not Know About

On See Jane Drill, contractor and DIY educator, Leah Bolden, points out a feature on most wire strippers that some makers may not know about. Right near the hinge of the tool are often found two (or more) bolt shears for common-size bolts (e.g. 6-32 and 8-32). Leah shows how to properly use these shears to remove the excess length but maintain the precious threads.

Shop Talk

Our friend Federico from wolfCatWorkshop sent in the following:

A couple of things I wanted to send your way:

• I’m intrigued by this “hack” of putting a hooked blade on an oscillating tool. Seems really cool. Haven’t tried it, but it’s been on my to-do list for a while.
  
  [I actually included that in my Tips book (Volume 2). I’ve never tried it, either, but I trust Chris Notap to be a very reliable source of real, non-gimmicky tips. – Gareth]
• I recently fell in love with the Workshop Companion YouTube channel, and I’m surprised I’d not found it before. His presentation is really clear and funny (in a good way) and the occasional appearance of the dog is super charming. Two videos that I loved were the bandsaw magic technique and “concealed hinges 101.” The latter is a really good intro to those fancy hinges and made me want to incorporate them into a project of my own.
• Also, this is a comment/plug as I made this video… I’ve been pondering about beginners learning CAD and an idea I came up with recently was using Ed Emberley’s drawing books (from the 1970’s!) to start getting familiar with the interface. I wonder how people jump from using a pencil on paper to using a mouse and a screen to make things. It’s not necessarily a natural progression for a lot of us.

08/23/23

Bioregions 

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 48

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, but the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

Best ecoregions map

Wild World Map

The most biological portrait of our planet yet. Life on earth clusters into ecological tribes, and each tribe inhabits a particular kind of place, or biome. Thus each of 86 categories of biomes, or bioregions, are mapped here in representational and related colors. This is the anatomy of our biosphere.

This map provides greater detail than the now-out-of-print CQ World Bioregions, or the UN Biome maps previously recommended. The disadvantage of this chart is that most of the pertinent text explaining each of the hundreds of biomes resides on a website and not the map itself. The advantage is the up-to-date, finely resolved understanding of which ecological systems live where. — KK

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Are You Really Here Now?

The Big Here Quiz

You live in the big here. Wherever you live, your tiny spot is deeply intertwined within a larger place, imbedded fractal-like into a whole system called a watershed, which is itself integrated with other watersheds into a tightly interdependent biome. (See the world eco-region map ). At the ultimate level, your home is a cell in an organism called a planet. All these levels interconnect. What do you know about the dynamics of this larger system around you? Most of us are ignorant of this matrix. But it is the biggest interactive game there is. Hacking it is both fun and vital.

The following exercise in watershed awareness was hatched 30 years ago by Peter Warshall, naturalist extraordinaire. Variations of this list have appeared over the years with additions by Jim Dodge, Peter Berg, and Stephanie Mills among others. I have recently added new questions from Warshall and myself, and I have edited or altered most of the rest. It’s still a work in progress. If you have a universal question you think fits, submit it to me.

The intent of this quiz is to inspire you to answer the questions you can’t initially. —KK

30 questions to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live:

1) Point north.

2) What time is sunset today?

3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap.

4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water?

5) How many feet above sea level are you?

6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here?

7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours?

8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt?

9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves?

10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available.

11) From what direction do storms generally come?

12) Where does your garbage go?

13) How many people live in your watershed?

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood?

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice?

16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move?

17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water?

18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past?

19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)?

20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put?

21) What was the total rainfall here last year?

22) Where does the pollution in your air come from?

23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today?

24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here?

25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years.

26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable?

27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated?

28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?

29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it?

30) How many days till the moon is full?

The Bigger Here Bonus Questions:

31. What species once found here are known to have gone extinct?

32. What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude?

33. What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago?

34. Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here.

08/21/23

The Lock Socket/Chinese sci-fi/Sounds of Space

Recomendo - issue #371

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No more missing chargers and cables

If you have a phone charger and cable set up in a common area of your house and it hasn’t vanished, then you probably live alone. The Lock Socket is a simple plastic device that attaches to a power outlet cover, making it impossible for the charger and cable to mysteriously disappear. Your family may be upset, but that’s the consequence. — MF

Chinese sci-fi

The famous Chinese science fiction trilogy, The Three Body Problem, is now available as a Chinese movie production, consisting of 30 parts online (free YouTube), with English subtitles. Like the books, one of its attractions is that it does not feel American/Hollywood-made.  — KK

Sounds of Space 

Sounds of Space is a really cool collection of astronomical objects sonified, like two black holes merging or Venus’s radio waves. I love this way of experiencing the universe. My favorite is the sound of Solar Wind at Mercury. Also here’s a recent sonification not yet added to the collection. It was created by converting rippling waves of gas from inside a star core into sound waves, so that we can now hear a Star Twinkling. — CD 

Home DIY videos

How To Home is a YouTube channel with excellent videos that demonstrate how to complete common household repairs, such as wiring switches, fixing faucet leaks, and threading wire through walls and ceilings. Unlike many DIY videos, these feature high-quality audio, are well-lit, and aren’t blurry. — MF

Squirrel-proof bird feed

The only reliable way to deter squirrels from bird feeders is to use hot peppered bird seed. Squirrels (and other rodents) hate the taste of capsaicin, but birds are immune and happily chow it down. Train your neighborhood squirrels by starting out with 100% of hot peppered seed like Wild Delight Sizzle N Heat Bird Food and then gradually dilute this expensive seed with regular stuff. I have not tried this, but you can make your own by mixing a cayenne oil like Flaming Squirrel Sauce with your usual seed. — KK

How to know what you really want

In this 5-minute video by Big Think, Author Luke Burgis breaks down the difference between “thick” and “thin” desires and introduces the concept of mimetic desires. Mimetic desires are imitative and influenced by our external life, like our parents, friends and community. They are considered thin because they are ephemeral and not worth feeding. Thick desires are the ones that are aligned with our core and universal human truths, like growth and beauty and kindness. Burgis suggests it’s worth mining your life and reflecting on moments when you felt deeply fulfilled in order to identify patterns that point to what you really want. Lately, whenever I feel pulled toward a particular direction, I ask myself if this is a thin or thick desire and then decide if it’s worth my time and effort. — CD

— Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia DawsonH

08/20/23

What’s in my NOW? — Skyli Shields