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New Electronics Series from Becky Stern
My old Make: colleague, Becky Stern, has a new video series that she’s doing for the electronics component company, Digi-Key. Becky has always done an impressive job of explaining what can be intimidating technical information in an entertaining and digestible way. If this first installment, an introduction to LEDs, is any indication, this series looks to deliver more of her welcome brand of accessible tech education.
How to Get Clearer and Stronger Transparent FDM Prints
In this CNC Kitchen video, Stefan shows the special settings you can use to create superior-looking clear prints using an FDM (Fused deposition modeling)printer and clear filament. He also looks at how these parameters make your parts super strong.
Making Your Own Vinyl Stickers
If you’ve been attracted to the idea of creating your own custom vinyl stickers, this video shows you how. All you basically need is a crafting vinyl cutter (a few hundred dollars) and some sheets or rolls of vinyl material.
CA Glue Accelerator from Baking Soda and Water
One of the best takeaways from this Bill Making Stuff video (where he celebrates his 50th episode) is his tip for creating your own accelerator for CA glue. As you likely know, there are commercial accelerators, but they smell funny, have nasty stuff in them, and are combustible. You’re even supposed to wear eye protection when using them, though nobody does. You may also know about using baking soda as an accelerator. It works great, but it leaves a dusty powder on everything that you have to clean off. Bill mixes his baking soda with water in a spray bottle and has found that it works great and creates less mess. I will definitely be trying this.
How a Gas Pump Knows When to Turn Itself Off
If you’ve ever wondered how a gas pump nozzle knows when to shut off when your tank is full, this video reveals the clever design. Venturi tubes, Bernoulli principle, negative pressure — it turns out the design is far more complicated that you might expect. I always assumed it was some sort of an electronic sensor, but it’s purely mechanical.
“I was surprised to see a recommendation for the OXO sink strainer. I love OXO products, but that strainer is a disappointment to me. I do like the inversion feature, but stuff still gets stuck in and around the holes. The silicone gets slimy. I have black slime after a week in my kitchen drain, probably from teensy bits of lettuce and herbs and salad dressing. UGH. (Cleaning out the bowl with a paper towel before washing it seems to help.) I don’t know that a standard issue strainer would make me any happier (though I’d love to quit using so many paper towels). I’m glad yours pleases you; my experience is just different.”
This is a great example of that adage made popular by early hacker culture: “Your mileage may vary” (YMMV). When I posted my review of the strainer on Boing Boing, the first few responses were similar to Candy’s and I got nervous, thinking I had prematurely decided a tool was a winner without giving it an honest testing myself. But then the positive reviews came and they were the overwhelming sentiment. And on Amazon, it has 17.5K reviews at 4.7 stars. After a month, we are more than happy with ours, but, as in all things, YMMV. Thanks for sharing your experience, Candy!
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Four years ago I mentioned these travel extension cords with multiple plugs that I use when taking a checked bag to Europe, but this time I’m in the ‘Stans with just a carry-on and didn’t have room. So I did what I’ve advised before in this newsletter: went to the local market and found an appropriate adapter after landing. Around $2.10 later in Almaty, I had a small device that can accommodate a U.S. plug and two USB cords at once. It’s handy since European-style outlets seldom get installed as doubles and I have yet to find a hotel or apartment in Central Asia that has upgraded to USB chargers. The one I got looks sort of like this if you want to plan ahead and that one’s a bit better if you use USB-C to USB-C cords a lot.
The Return of the Couchsurfing Experience
Are you old enough to remember Couchsurfing? It was a cool community platform for finding places to crash for free around the world... until it wasn’t. The founders turned it into a for-profit venture in 2011 and it quickly went downhill. Now there’s an offering with the same original spirit called Couchers. It’s a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and you can sign up as a host, a coucher, or just find the meet-ups, all for free. See more about it here.
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The “Best” Places to Live Are Subjective
Every week or two I get an e-mail about some study showing the best or worst places to live abroad. Usually it is funded by a brand or a digital PR firm working for a brand, an attempt to have stories picked up and get mentions/links. The people writing it are crunching whatever stats they can find from behind a desk, with the aid of AI. One received this week told me that two of the places rated highest by nomads actually booking apartments—Medellin and Da Nang—were among the 10 worst places to live in the world. (No, I’m not linking to it!) It’s a reminder not to take these studies at face value, especially when the methodology is flawed. The only real way to find out if a place is perfect for you or a “Get me out of here” nightmare is to go there and spend some real time on location. You might hate Da Nang in the end, but decide for yourself based on your own criteria.
2026 Traveler Trends
A more reliable study is this one from TripAdvisor that looked at six months of booking data for day tours to tell us what’s changing in the patterns. Experiences with real locals are overtaking the check-the-box sightseeing jaunts, though somehow already packed Vatican City tours saw a 61% increase. Percentages are deceiving since those with a lower starting level have more room to run, but the activities rated the highest are on an even playing field. The highest-ranked global ones over six months were cooking classes, surfing/windsurfing, craft classes, and activities on two wheels. See the options where you’re headed here.
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.
