I Canceled the New York Times

...Times’s chief competitor the New-York Daily Tribune. That these old papers used to also cover Mars canals and underground lizard people points to a playfulness and a greater respect for readers who knew these stories were made up and who had no illusions about the objectivity of newspaper writing. Of course many things can be known through the tools of science and specialized expertise, but most aspects of what it means to be human, such as politi...

Read…

Who Killed the Non-Electric Toaster?

...ind an alternative and remembered seeing non-electric toasters that people used to use back in the 1920s when our house was built. These types of toasters have not died out entirely. Most non-electric toaster designs look like the one above. Some Googling also led us to an innovative looking non-electric toaster called the DeltaToast. Counter-intuitively, all of these simple stove top toasters coast about twice as much as electric toaster, at leas...

Read…

There she goes, my beautiful world

.... They are safer, produce less dust and, while taking some practice to get used to, are just as precise if not more so and lead to fewer catastrophic mistakes. Lastly, I can’t minimize how important it is to have a proper workbench. Other crafts such as sewing, metal work, electronics etc. are greatly facilitated by a proper and dedicated work surface as well. While expensive to set up, the workshop has paid for itself many times over. I’ve used i...

Read…

I Made a Little Library

...ng around. The universe kinda came together to make this project happen. I used simple rabbet joints done on the tablesaw to create the plywood box. For the doors I used mortise and tenon joints. I picked up some piece of metal flashing material to cobble together a roof. I sketched out the plans at a cafe while Kelly was at an appointment and did the final plan in Sketchup to make sure that I didn’t make a stupid mistake cutting the plywood. As a...

Read…

Growing Pink Oyster Mushrooms

...r easily out-competing molds that can tank other mushrooms. The culture we used in step 2 aggressively colonized the grain (we used sorghum bird seed called milo) as well as the straw. If anything the problem I had is that it went faster than I expected. Once the jars are colonized you have to move the grain to straw. Nature has a tendency not to care about human schedules. Hot Pink Results Some observations from this last experiment. We chose pin...

Read…