Clays

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 143

Non-fired sculpting clay

Sugru

Sugru is a soft moldable material that reminds me of Fimo clay. But unlike Fimo, it does not have to be heated to cure. It air drys and is rubbery and sticks to anything. I used it to make a new button for my utility knife when the plastic one broke. I made bumpers for my cell phone. I put some on my tools so they would not roll off the table. I am still discovering ways to use the product. — Philip Lipton

This stuff comes in tiny pouches of different primary colors. You knead a bit with your hands until soft, then you apply it where you would like an additional grip, or stop, or section of repair. It’s pretty sticky, can be worked like clay, but dries into a hard rubber. The photo shows a paring knife handle that was falling apart from years of dishwasher use. I coated the outside with Sugru and it now it feels great and is dishwasher proof. See Sugru’s website for other ways it can be used. — KK

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Better than clay

Sculpey

Artists know about this stuff. It’s flexible polymer clay that hardens into rigid plastic after a spell in your kitchen oven. Bright steadfast colors. Or you can paint, drill, and polish it. Great for making toys, models, small sculptures, modern jewelry, and weird stuff — anything that demands that colored plastic look. SuperSculpey is a translucent beige-colored (skin like) variety sold in bulk that dollmakers and Hollywood special effects swear by. Most good art suppliers will stock it. — KK

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Stiff polymer clay

SuperSculpey Firm

A few weeks ago, my 11-year old son and I decided to sculpt, so we got out SuperSculpey Firm polymer clay. After working with this newer style of Sculpey for a while, we decided it totally kicks ass on softer styles of Sculpey. Why? Because it doesn’t flop over on its side when handled. And it’s firm enough to keep its shape when carved. My son began making a tank. So I made a tank. We have yet to paint them.

The Sculpey brands are especially encouraging for beginners, yet professionals artists depend on them as well. Pros ranging from vinyl toy artists to designers for film use it. Unlike normal clay, Sculpey hardly changes shape or size when baked, and hardening takes place quickly, at the relatively low temperatures of a convection oven (even a toaster oven will do).

Because of its polymer base, there’s loads of fun techniques to try with Sculpey: like baking your sculpture for only half the allotted time. When you take it out of the oven, prematurely, you’ll find your little masterpiece has a soft, rubbery texture. In this state, it won’t lose its shape and can be easily carved with a knife or a file. Have you cut too much away? Add a little more Sculpey and put it back in the oven, for more cooking! — Robyn Miller

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Silver clay that becomes silver metal

Precious Metal Clay

Precious Metal Clay lets you make fine jewelry with little experience or equipment. It works like Fimo clay, except it is more crumbly because it contains powdered precious metal, such as silver, or gold. (It will also dry out faster.) The organic clay binding burns off when you fire it and you end up with pure fine silver or gold in the shape of the clay you made. If you have jewelry skills you can keep working it from there, soldering, shaping, etc.. Since I don’t have much skill I just polish up my pieces or antique them with silver black. There’s an implication that you have to fire PMC pieces in a kiln (that would be nice), but so far everything I’ve done I’ve fired myself on the kitchen floor with a basic propane torch.

All PMC shrinks significantly when fired. However since the shrinkage is proportional, jewelers use this shrinkage to produce very fine detail that would be difficult if you had to work at full size. PMC comes in various formulations with different shrinkage rates. The original PMC shrinks 30%, while PMC+ and PMC3 shrinks only 10%. (I’ve never tried using the torch on anything except silver PMC+ and PMC3 because I prefer the lower shrinkage of these.)

My one piece of advice about firing PMC with a propane torch: This stuff is very expensive (it’s silver or gold, remember!) so take a small piece and sacrifice it to learn how to heat evenly first. It is very easy to overheat it which will melt the silver into a blob., which is bad. If you aren’t sure if it’s metal yet (it’ll be whitish), pick it up with needle nose plier and drop it very gently on the metal surface you fired it on. It should make a satisfying metal-on-metal thunk. When I am feeling more flush, I’ll find out if gold PMC can be fired this way. — Quinn Norton

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Moldable plastic

Shapelock

Shapelock is “Ultra-High Molecular Weight Low Temperature Thermoplastic. Similar to nylon and polypropylene in toughness., except it’s easy to work with and shape.”

You get a bag of plastic pellets, put them in 160F water, and they phase change, becoming soft and moldable. If you don’t let the water get too hot, when you take the plastic out, it’s cool enough to shape with your hands.

When it cools down, it hardens into a strong, durable, paintable, machine-able white plastic. If you don’t like what you made, you just put it in 160F water again and reshape it.

Great for making prototypes — also fun to play with. The same stuff, under a different name (Friendly Plastic), is available in larger quantities, at a slightly cheaper rate. — Patrick Tufts

06/23/25

Personal info audit/Free audio transcription/Than Average

Recomendo - issue #467

Auditing personal info on web

Google has made it easier to see what personal information about you is currently posted on the web. Go to the Results About You page at Google, and fill out the form. It will take several days to weeks before you get results back showing what the public web shows. For me about a dozen occurrences of my home and email address. You can ask Google to delete each instance, but it only deletes it from its search results and not the web. (For that you need to contact the site displaying it.) — KK

Free audio transcription

Speech-to-Text by Borg is an automated transcription service with a generous free tier. You can upload MP3s up to 25MB (roughly 30 minutes of audio) and get fast, high-quality transcripts without paying a cent. They offer a paid tier at $0.06/hour for longer recordings. I use it for interviews, meeting notes, and voice memos. — MF

Compare yourself to others

Than Average is a small, “unscientific” investigation into how you compare yourself to others—for fun. Just answer the questions instinctively and see where you land in a room with 100 strangers. You can view all the questions and see how many people have answered them. I left my emotions and insecurities out of it, and found all the results interesting. — CD

Used stuff marketplace

Rather than trashing my old stuff, I like to find a new home for it, selling it or giving it away for free. The real action for used stuff has moved away from Craigslist to Facebook Marketplace. (The broadest reach is on eBay, but everything needs to be packaged for shipping.) Facebook Marketplace is the best for local and bulky things. It is a lot easier to use than Craigslist, and in my experience has 10 times the responses (for selling) or varieties (for buying). It is free to use. If you have patience you can find almost anything you want on Facebook Marketplace used, or get rid of almost anything you want with minimal hassle. — KK

Suction cup caddy

I needed a caddy for a newly tiled shower stall but was skeptical of suction-cup mounts, which in my experience always fail. The Hasko Shower Caddy changed my mind — it uses a knob-tightening mechanism that creates an incredibly strong hold on smooth tile. I installed it a month ago and it hasn’t budged, even when loaded with heavy bottles and supplies. For rough surfaces, it includes adhesive mounting discs. — MF

Beginner’s Wood Whittling Kit

Through ACER, an online integration community I am part of, I occasionally host wood whittling sessions. I am not a detail-oriented person or particularly skilled with my hands, but I find it very soothing and meditative to shape and smooth out tree sticks, which I then glue crystals and feathers onto to create wands. My only tool is this beginner’s carving kit by BeaverCraft. I’ve used it for a year now, and the knives are still sharp and easy to hold. They’re helping to build my confidence to someday carve a figure. — CD

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06/22/25

Book Freak 183: How to Read a Book

The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

HOW TO READ A BOOK, by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren | 1940 (Updated 1972)

Get How To Read a Book

Why It Matters:

In an age of information overload, the ability to read deeply and extract genuine understanding becomes increasingly rare and valuable. Many people can read basic text, but few know how to truly absorb and engage with challenging material in a way that transforms their understanding.

Three Levels of Mastery:

Inspectional Reading

Learn to quickly evaluate a book’s value before investing deep time. Systematically preview content to grasp the main structure and decide if fuller reading is warranted.

Analytical Reading

Engage in genuine conversation with the author. Identify core arguments, challenge assumptions, and connect ideas rather than just collecting facts.

Syntopical Reading

Master the art of reading multiple books on the same subject. Create a dialogue between different authors and develop your own well-reasoned position.

Try It Now:

Pick up a book you’ve been meaning to read. Set a timer for 15 minutes. First, read only the table of contents and write down what you think the main argument will be. Then, read the first and last paragraph of each chapter, jotting quick notes. Finally, flip to three random pages and read them carefully. Stand up and try to explain to an imaginary person, out loud, what this book is about and whether it’s worth your time.

Quote:

“Reading a book on any level beyond the elementary is essentially an effort on your part to ask it questions (and to answer them to the best of your ability). The art of reading is largely the art of asking the right questions in the right order.”

06/20/25

Craghoppers Clothing/Cheap Japan Flights/SE Asia Hotspot

Nomadico issue #160

Craghoppers Clothing is Back in the USA

Ever since ExOfficio went into decline after a buyout (they only sell underwear now), it has been more difficult to find tough travel clothing meant for adventurers. That was partly because UK apparel company Craghoppers pulled out of the U.S. market for a while. I’m happy to say they’re back in action at CraghoppersUSA.com and I’ve been trying out some of their “guaranteed for life” rugged shirts and pants, many items treated with Insect Shield to keep the bugs at bay. They also make treated skorts, leggings, and other items for women too. See my rundown here and get 15% off if you click from there or directly here with code TL15.

ZipAir for Cheap Japan Flights

Via partner Kevin Kelly (and of Recomendo), we’re getting reports of people finding crazy low flight prices to Japan on budget airline ZipAir. (They’re so cheap the domain is zipair.net—couldn’t afford the .com!) Kevin says one friend got a $300 round trip from the USA West Coast to Japan and another found a round-trip deal for $276. Lie-flat business class flights can be as low as $1,408 from Los Angeles to Tokyo if you pull up the next few months of dates. The website looks like a Coding 101 school project and the contact info is limited though, so be sure to have travel insurance in place. And expect to pay add-on fees.

Travel Fee Avoidance for Canadians

I often highlight tips for keeping transaction fees to a minimum while traveling, but I’ll be the first to admit that USA citizens have a lot more options than those in most other countries. My blogging buddy Bri Mitchell covered the best steps for Canadians though in her Substack newsletter The Weekly Traveler. Get the scoop here on what she advises for travelers from Canada in terms of debit and credit cards on the road.

Southeast Asia’s Top Nomad Hub

Chiang Mai has been the top digital nomad destination in Southeast Asia for about as long as people have been working remotely from a laptop. Bali was a close second, with Canggu especially getting plenty of transplants. James Clark of Nomadic Notes knows the scene in the region better than anyone though and his recent travels have convinced him that Da Nang in Vietnam is now the champ. Getting my attention: “part of the 27 km coastline that goes all the way to Hoi An” and “beer is somehow cheaper than a coconut.”

06/19/25

What’s in my NOW? — Musa Gathuru

issue #215

My wife and I call Kenya home, but we love to visit other places. We love to read, and we love to learn new things. As long as I am learning something new, I am happy. — Musa Gathuru

Links:
Productivity Blog
Travel Blog

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PHYSICAL

• Beat up old guitar: my guitar is an old guitar that a friend gave me after she fell off a bodaboda (local motor bike transport) in Uganda and got the side bashed in. It sounds reasonably okay, and probably matches my skill level since I started to learn late in life. Here’s the thing: Since I started learning to play, it has brought me immeasurable pleasure and joy, even when the sounds emanating from it were more akin to an animal dying than actual music. And not just playing and singing myself, but my enjoyment of other people’s music has intensified, since now I actually have an appreciation how skilled they actually are. I think everyone should learn how to play an instrument at some point in their lives. You are welcome.
• Beat up old book reader: I bought an old second hand Kobo book reader on ebay. It cost me 50$ and I use it at least once a day. I am on course to read 52 books this year as I have done the last few years since I rediscovered my love of reading. As Carl Sagan says: “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.” Apart from the bit about trees, everything he says applies to electronic books as well. My only challenge is remembering what I read. But my one invisible thing has helped me out with that.
• Macbook: I have tried a bunch of different laptops, and macs really do have it worked out. The perfect blend of usability, power, battery life and durability. And prettiness, which is an underrated quality to look for in a laptop. My last mac lasted 10 years before I had to upgrade it, which is pretty good value for money. I use my mac for pretty much everything. I don’t own a TV, so it is my entertainment center, communication, music, learning as well as the host of my 2 digital things.

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DIGITAL

• Zettelkasten: A zettelkasten is a personal knowlege management system made famous by a German social scientist named Nicklas Luhmann. It made him so ridiculously productive that he pumped out more than 70 books and 400 scholarly articles in his lifetime. This was before computers, so his knowlege management system worked with index cards. I started managing all my notes and data using this system a couple of years ago, and in this short time I have built up a couple of thousand notes linked to each other. I use an app called ‘Obsidian‘ because it stores my notes in plain text that I can read on any computer or phone, and allows me to link between notes. You can view a subset at the link below, but the long and short of it is that I am soo thrilled to be able to find my information in a natural organic way. As Luhman says, it becomes a ‘second brain.’ It sounds freaky, but you can hold ‘conversations’ with since it keeps on throwing up interesting stuff that I created in the past. And since I created, it’s always interesting even if I forgot I wrote it!
• Johnny Decimal system: I tried a bunch of different file organization systems, and the JD system is pretty simple, and yet powerful enough to manage all my files. It applies to everything: task management, file storage, cloud file storage, etc. There is a simple index file which keeps track of the number assignment, and each folder gets a number in the format xx.xx. The genius of the system is that you are not allowed to have more than 2 levels of folders, so there is a kind of natural limit that forces you to keep things simple. Since I started using it I stopped spending ages looking for lost files, and know where everything is.

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INVISIBLE

Barbell reading method

I have an exceedingly bad memory. I like to joke that my memory does not discriminate: I can forget your name, face and details regardless of your age, color, origin or gender. And it is not limited to forgetting names and faces. I can read entire books and not even remember whether I read the book or not. On more than one occasion I have reread a book in it’s entirety only to realise towards the end that I have actually read it before. Enter the Barbell reading method. Read once to get through the material. Mark sections that have value to you to revisit later. This may be electronically, or physically by highlighting. Then go back and process the marked sections. This is best done by rewriting the section (and this is important!) in your own words. You might do additional research, or draw charts, or mindmaps, or whatever you want. You might apply it to your own life, or area. You might think of examples. You might even change your mind and write down the reverse of what the original source says. The important thing is that this step makes it yours. Henceforth, this idea now belongs to you and can be used for whatever you want.

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06/18/25

Fragments of Horror / Woman Rebel

Issue No. 71

FRAGMENTS OF HORROR – WONDERFULLY CREEPY STORIES THAT ARE AS WEIRD AS THEY ARE ORIGINAL

Fragments of Horror
by Junji Ito
Viz Media
2015, 224 pages, 5.8 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches (hardcover)

Buy on Amazon

Fragments of Horror is a collection of eight wonderfully grotesque and creepy short stories. A seemingly bright and pretty architecture student terrorizes a family while having a bizarre relationship with their house. A boy tries to hold his body together after cheating on his girlfriend. The number one fan of a novelist finds herself in a sick situation trapped in the writer’s basement. A young woman who just eloped can’t understand why her new husband won’t come out from under his futon covers.

Written by horror manga artist Junji Ito, whose influences include H.P. Lovecraft, the stories are as weird as they are original, while the art is crisp and expressive. What I love is the way these stories, set in modern Japan, are about seemingly normal lives that take a twisted turn into the bowels of darkness. They remind me of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, the ones that start off in a stylish, mid-century modern house or office where sharp-looking people go about their ordinary lives… until a crack in normality suddenly appears, the creep factor sets in, and they enter the twilight zone. My only regret is that there aren’t more stories here, but fortunately Ito isn’t new to the genre and has many other titles that I’ll be picking up soon. – Carla Sinclair

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WOMAN REBEL – PETER BAGGE’S GRAPHIC BIO OF THE CONTROVERSIAL FOUNDER OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story
by Peter Bagge
Drawn and Quarterly
2013, 104 pages, 6.8 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches (hardcover)

Buy on Amazon

When I think of Peter Bagge, I think of his work in Hate or Neat Stuff, both comics about teenage angst and living in suburban malaise. Therefore, when I saw he wrote Woman Rebel, a biography of Margaret Sanger (the woman responsible for Planned Parenthood), I was curious. Once I started reading, it made perfect sense. Discontent, anger, and frustration with the status quo translate perfectly to the life of Ms. Sanger. Margaret Sanger is most famously known as the founder of Planned Parenthood and for her endless fight for women’s access to birth control in the early 20th century. The book highlights key moments in Sanger’s life – it starts with her childhood (she was born in the 1880s to Irish immigrants) and takes us through her early work as a nurse, mother, and eventual activist.

What makes this biography unique are Bagge’s illustrations. His faces, especially the contorted, frustrated ones that work in Bagge’s earlier work (say, on his teenage anti-hero Buddy Bradley) cross over really well. There is a lot of sadness and anger in Sanger’s life, whether it was her mother (who had 18 pregnancies in 25 years) or Sanger herself facing the many smug and misogynistic critics attempting to halt her progress. There is a lot of emotion in this book, the same that made Sanger persevere.

After reading Woman Rebel, I went online to learn more about Sanger and was immediately slammed by my own ignorance as to what a controversial person she is today. Aside from any expected generic criticism of Planned Parenthood, she is described as a “racist eugenicist” and guilty of “black genocide.” Bagge addresses this controversy in his afterword “Why Sanger?” He delves into how she advocated birth control to women of the KKK (that’s right – the KKK – another reason why this book is full of surprises) as well as black women living in Harlem. Bagge gives lots of examples of how her legacy has been dissected over time, and Bagge’s description of her critics is great: “It’s an irony festival!”

Regardless of how you feel about Margaret Sanger’s legacy, this book is an illustrated education into a woman, that as Bagge puts it, “lived the lives of ten people,” and is directly responsible for the access women have to reproductive health care in 2016. The only actual criticism of this book for me is that I wanted more. The book could be twice the length, and dive deeper into more details of her life, because it seems they are endless. – Amy Lackpour

06/17/25

What’s in my NOW? — Musa Gathuru