Building A Microscope Out of a Laser Pointer

This is an sweet little hack for using nothing but a laser pointer to build a microscope thingy:

Plus, if you watch the video you'll be introduced to the Crazy Russian Hacker, who is as cool as his username suggests.

I've actually been surprised I haven't seen more uses for laser pointers. Up until now, the niftiest idea I had seen for a laser pointer was to mount it on your mini weapon of mass destruction as a super accurate scope.

Oh, they are also handy for getting arrested. Naturally, there are other hacks out there, so maybe I do need steal my PhD brother's laser pointer for some goofing around.

Regardless, don't forget: Safety is Number One Priority!

Review: 869 New Uses for Old Things

Given my fondness for improvisation, renting Real Simple 869 New Uses for Old Things: An Encyclopedia of Innovative Ideas for Everyday Items from the library was a no-brainer. The contents are just what the title suggests: pick an item, describe a few alternate use for it, repeat.

The book is clearly more interested in the breadth of items, versus the depth of uses for particular items. How else can you explain WD-40 having a two alternate uses listed (instead, of say, 2,001), or the bobby pin also having 2. It does, however, contain a number of Master Multitaskers which pick one item and fill up a page (of relatively large type) of uses for it.

My favorite three hacks:

• Using empty paper towel tubes to neatly store plastic bags
• Lighting a length of spaghetti and using it as an improvised, extra long, match
• All the use for olive oil

I was also surprised at how useful coffee filters can be, but because we don't drink coffee, we don't have any lying around to try them out. Nor do I think I can justify buying some just to play with the hacks (or maybe I can...).

For someone like myself, it's a fun book and if nothing else, it will get your creative juices flowing. Certainly glad I rented it from the library, and it would probably make a fun and functional coffee table book.

My favorite part of the book, though, is contained after the last item is discussed (zippered plastic bags, to be exact). It's a flowchart that lists 10 uses for itself for the book itself. Definitely a clever addition.

Thanh Van - The Best Little Hidden Vegan Restaurant in Northern Virginia

About a hundred years ago, before Barack Obama won his second term, and Super Storm Sandy Made an appearance, my parents came to town (OK, it was a little over two weeks ago, but you get the idea). I performed the usual Google searches to see if any new all-vegetarian restaurants had popped up since they had last been in town. Thanks to Yelp, I found that here was a Vietnamese restaurant just about 10 minutes away: Thanh Van. Whoo!

On Friday afternoon, while Shira was out running errands, I took my parents over to the Eden Center to stop in for a bite. I've been by the Eden Center, but never really into it. Never really had a reason to, I guess.

We arrived, and with the name of the restaurant in hand, started searching around. Holy Smokes. I haven't felt this culturally disoriented...since...well, probably never. The Eden Center is huge, from first glance, nearly ever sign is in (what appears to me) to be Vietnamese. Signs like this one were the norm:

(Got all that?)

I knew from the Yelp review that I would find Thanh Van on the inside of the mall, but wandering around only left me more confused. I asked a couple of folks standing around and nobody had any ideas. Finally, I asked a woman if there was a vegan restaurant near by - she had no idea what I was talking about. Then I mentioned, vegetarian -- ahhh, that she knew of. She pointed me across the parking lot and off I went with my parents.

After going down yet another hallway filled with cafes and shops, I found it. The only encouragement that I had found a vegan restaurant was the phrase "SPECIAL Diet Vegetable" in the main sign in the entrance way. See:

We stepped inside, past a compact buffet of hot foods and were seated in the small cafe. Two important looking individuals - one a man, one a woman - helped us get oriented. I've ordered Vietnamese a number of times, but it's usually nothing to write home about. We ended up getting one order of Pho, another spicy soup and one sampler from the buffet. One of our servers actually took my mom up to the buffet and together they put together a heaping pile of food (not sure if that's standard, or if they were just helping out a rookie).

Here's the part that really matters: the food was absolutely outstanding. The buffet was filled with what appeared to be mock-meat dishes, and they had excellent flavors and textures. Certainly as good as any vegan chinese restaurant I've been to, if not better. I thought I'd tasted every way to flavor/cook tofu and the like - apparently, I was wrong. The soups were also excellent, though I probably need to spend some time learning proper Pho technique before I'm really there.

The service was warm and attentive. They may have laughed themselves silly at the way we at our food, but they couldn't have been kinder to us.

The place is small and very much an informal cafe. So you'll want to dial back any expectations of fancy ambiance. But the food more than made up for that, and the casual atmosphere lends itself to asking questions.

I truly felt like a tourist, and even snapped some photos of the food. It was so much fun, I couldn't resist:

Finally, here's what you need to do to find this place. First, drive here:

View Larger Map

Next, look for this doorway:

Walk down the hall, which should look like this:

Near the end of the hallway, find Thanh Van:

You may have an adventure going there, but it'll definitely be worth it!

Another Geocaching First

This last weekend, I had about an hour of playtime with our 7 year old before we needed to meet back up with Shira. Given the success we've had, I figured trying for another geocache would be a good use of our time.

We went after this one, which had the two criteria I've find to be most important: (a) it was recently found (the day before!) and (b) it was large enough to contain some goodies for our little one.

This was also a fun one, because the map placed the cache in the middle of 4 Mile Run - not the road, but the body of water. How was that going to work? We soon found out.

While I used the GPS to get us in the right neighborhood, it was our 7 year old who actually found the cache! No hints or nudges from me, he outright found it while I was off poking around in the wrong location.

If you still haven't tried Geocaching, what are you waiting for? You know your phone has a free App for that, right? It's an easy and local way to have some outdoor fun.

A few snapshots from the area around the cache.

Election Night Romance

A couple snuggling at Taqueria Poblano with a tablet on the table and the TV above - both showing election results. Awww, how sweet.

That's so DC.

It's About Time This Kid Learned To Program - Embracing Scratch

OK, I admit it - I've been feeling a bit of geek dad guilt over our 7 year old and his computer hacking skills. Mainly, I've found plenty of fun activities for us to work on -- from paper airplane building to stuffed animal architecture. But all my attempts at doing anything on the computer beyond basic games have been a bust.

Don't get me wrong - he's amazingly adept at the mechanics of using a computer. He occasionally does math homework on the computer, and is a whiz clicking around. However, what I really want to teach him is that the computer can be used the same way he uses other tools (read: crayons, tape and whatever else can scrounge): to build stuff. In other words, I'd like to teach him to program.

Now, part of me is perfectly aware that the best traits of a programmer (like the ability to break down problems and finding and fixing bugs) are ones that he can learn and practice without a computer. But who am I kidding? As a programmer, I've got to at least try to teach him some basic skills.

But where to begin? Personally, I have an affinity for small and simple systems. That simplicity would make for an easier learning curve, right? Wrong. Sure, logo is a beautiful and simple language, but how can line graphics pull in the interest of a 7 year old? Not only that, but concepts like "turn 90 degrees" are totally foreign to him. Heck, at 7 he's still not sure what a negative number is all about. As a student exploring geometry, Logo may make heaps of sense, but as an introduction to programming, it's not going to work.

Same goes for small basic and my beloved Racket. Sure, for middle school or high school kids, these are no a brainer, but not for an elementary student.

Luckily, the insights above are nothing new, and there are those who have already figured out a solution. One approach: Scratch by the folks over at MIT.

Scratch allows programming through a snap together model. Kids (or in my case, parent and kid) can drag various behaviors and controls onto a canvas which in real time produce a program. Visual programming is nothing new, but Scratch manages to nail it for kids. The environment comes equipped with a healthy library of animation sprites, sounds and other multimedia features. Forget Hello World and Fibonnaci Sequences, Scratch makes it effortless to be a DJ and an animated storyteller.

In fact, the line between program, game and art creation are pretty much non existent in Scratch.

The Scratch team has gone further than developing a slick programming environment, they've developed a community to tie it all together. You're encouraged to browse through the projects, pick one you like, download it and tweak it. The community is a smart idea and means that you never need to run out of ideas of what to build.

For now, our little guy is most interested in hearing all the different sound clips that are available and jumping up and dancing to them. But that's OK. He's learning that he can control the computer, instead of the other way around.

Here's the first project we put together. I did most of technical work here, though he made the artistic decisions, including naming it "Animal Parade." Try pressing the A, S, and D keys to get the animals to "sing" along.

The fun part about Scratch is just how quickly you can make an entertaining creation. Go head, give it a try. One tiny bit of advice: spend a few minutes getting up to speed before you attempt to show your kid, that way you can be productive right out of the gate.

Good Minions Are Hard To Find

I feel for this guy (or gal?), I really do. In an effort to help him out, I'm reposting his craigslist ad verbatim:

Evil Genius needs minions to run innocuous "front" operation while plotting world domination.

Requirements:
Good phone personality to disguise our true intent. Computer literate, Minimum need of good Excel, Word skill. Familiarity with social network sites and internet for cyberstalking enemies and frustrating UN, MI-6 and CIA attempts to block nefarious plans. (and also to find decent Thai & Sushi delivery services).

Good organizational skills including billing, filing, and stocking of supplies for front operation. Will teach bookkeeping, office management, and care and cleaning of automatic weapons.

Long hours, low pay, occasional need to lift heavy items into Van or car trunk. (Discretely).

Serious inquiries only.

Of course, I'm usually more concerned with finding minyans, than minions, but either way, a good one is hard to find.

Cox Farms and Playing the role of responsible adult

Yesterday was a first: I tagged along with our 7 year old's class to act as a chaperon for their trip to Cox Farms. When I arrived, I was instructed to watch over our son and one of his friends. Other parents seemed to be wrangling larger groups, but I guess someone either took pity on me, or didn't think I was ready for a larger group. Either way, the chaperoning gig couldn't have been easier. My goal: have them back to the bus on time, and not require use of the first aid kit.

Cox Farms was an excellent place to visit. It was both similar to, and yet different from the recently visited Great County Farms. Both places had large slides and plenty of areas to run around. Cox Farms had a fairly long hay ride that kept the kids attention without scaring them. Great Country Farms had more maze options than the adult corn maze both have. Both are great on a sunny day for kids who like to get out and play.

The highlight of the trip was feeding the goats. Both boys were eager to feed them, but once their hands were filled with food and the goats crowded on top of each other, they got incredibly skittish. When they finally figured out the goats weren't going to bite their fingers off, they totally got into it.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Not quite sure the educational value of it all, but I suppose it was the kind of shared fun experience that adults use for team building.

And I managed to get the kids back to the bus with all their digits and limbs...so let's just call that a win.

Newt Brings The Cheap Gas To My Neighborhood

Yesterday, I came across this announcement:

Newt Gingrich will appear at a New American Energy Opportunity Foundation “Gas Can Man” event taking place at the Pentagon Liberty Store at 2300 Columbia Pike tomorrow [Nov 2] from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Drivers will be provided with $1.84 a gallon gasoline “to dramatically show voters what life was like before President Obama imposed onerous restrictions on domestic oil and gas exploration that resulted in soaring gas prices,” according to NAEOF spokesman Joe DeSantis.

Cheap gas? Newt Gingrich? All down the street from me at the very station I last filled up. How could I not stop by?

So I did. The result was pretty much what you'd expect: a line of cars, police directing traffic at gas station that's wicked crowded on the best of days, signs up bashing Obama and a guy in a giant gas can outfit. I didn't see Newt or anyone else really talking. I skipped getting gas (the price wasn't for premium gas, which we use), but I did get some photos:

As political maneuvers go, I'm impressed at the originality of the idea. Why spend more money on TV commercials (that I skip with my DVR, thank you very much) when you can just make your point in a way I can really appreciate: cheap gas.

The fact that they picked Arlington, a ridiculously pro Obama town (and just a few hundred feet away from the Obama reelection center) was either brilliantly inspired, or a serious miscalculation. Probably the former.

As for the notion that our gas prices are high because "Obama imposed onerous restrictions on domestic oil and gas exploration" -- I'm not buying it. And neither is Politifact. Not to mention, the $1.84 price was an anomaly at the time, not business as usual:

Still, props for getting creative. Next time, though, it would be cool if we could do creative and truthful.

That Time David Saved Halloween

Shira and I thought we had Halloween under control for our 7 year old. We had a costume he loved, the Black Ninja, and was comfortable to wear (minus the silly scarf covering the mouth - yeah, not practical). I used my experience growing up in frigid Rochester, NY to make sure he was wearing plenty of layers *under* his costume so he wouldn't have to cover it up with a bulky jacket.

We used Hurricane Sandy as the perfect excuse to do pumpkin carving, and along with my Dad's (or was it David's?) and Maryn's handy work, we had 4 most excellent pumpkins:

(A few key points to brag about: our 7 year old colored in the perfect mustache on my pumpkin, and it was his idea to add the bow tie to his. Maryn's pumpkin, is an amazing match for Elmo, which she did freehand. My Dad's pumpkin was expertly executed from a pattern)

David insisted that I pick up an absurd amount of candy from Cost Co so we would be ready for any number of kids, and could be especially generous with them.

All that was left do was go out and do the Trick-or-Treating.

My assumption was that at 6pm (it was just about dark), David, our 7 year old and I would hit our neighborhood and that would be that. After all, growing up, our neighborhood was a hotbed of Halloween activity, with hundreds of kids running from house to house. Surely that's how all neighborhoods are, right?

Wrong. As we started off, we quickly found that there just weren't that many houses that looked alive and interested in accepting Trick-or-Treaters. Sure, we were collecting some candy, but the mood was hardly the rambunctious one that David and I recall growing up. In fact, given the number of dark houses and lack of fellow Trick-or-Treaters, it was actually kinda creepy strolling through the neighborhood.

David had a solution, though. We just needed to jump in the the car, find a hopping neighborhood and tackle that one. I just couldn't see that working. Luckily, I ignored my instincts, and we made our way back to the house and into the car.

We set off for a somewhat random'ish neighborhood in South Arlington, and before we knew it, we found a street that had some life. There two houses that had extensive decorations, and a Dad along with his kids making the rounds. What the heck, we thought, let's give it a try.

After about 15 minutes, the street was crawling with kids, and that Halloween excitement was back! David's suggestion turned out to be just what we needed.

When we returned, Shira was in charge of sorting and accounting for candy. It's a difficult job, but someone has to do it.

All in all, we had a most successful night. And best of all, we know the neighborhood to start in next year.

Here's the Black Ninja himself, getting his Trick-r-Treat on...

Useful Object of the Day: Olive Oil

I was making my way through New Uses for Old Things, and was surprised to read such high praise of Olive Oil as a multi purpose tool.

I guess this makes some sense, as Olive Oil is edible so it can be used on and near your skin, and yet is an oil so it can be used as an improvised WD-40.

Some of my favorite uses:

• To shave with, rather than shaving cream. A bottle of olive oil should be much more compact than shaving cream. Perfect for travel.
• To unstick zippers and basically act as a lubricant
• As a shoe polish alternative
• As an improvised moisturizer
• As lamp fuel. If you've got an orange lying around, you can use it and some olive oil to quickly make a lamp.

There are, of course, lots more uses (including curing ear infections and getting rid of lice!).

I couldn't resist taking a few minutes and fashioning a quick olive oil lamp. It was surprisingly easy. I used the bottom of a soda can to hold the fuel, tiny binder slips to hold the wick in place and a tightly wound bit of paper towel as wick. See:

I placed the setup in a Pyrex measuring cup and had a functional and portable lantern. A little splash of olive oil lasted about 40 minutes.

Definitely an impressive tool. I'm going to have to add a few ounces to my Dopp Kit, and see how I can put this all to use on the road.

Some Kindle Fire HD Observations

This last weekend my parents were in visiting, and my Mom brought her brand new Kind Fire HD. While I didn't get to play with it a lot, I did manage to make a few observations:

• As a programmer, I can see the setup process was relatively streamlined. Yet, I'm glad I was there to help my Mom make it through the whole process. Had she been doing it solo, I'm not sure how easy it would have been.
• Quality wise, the device is excellent. It looks and feels quite polished.
• The naming is awfully confusing. Amazon has successfully educated my Mom (and I assume others) that a Kindle is for reading books. I surprised her when I explained she could Skype and run other apps from it. It was certainly a pleasant surprise, but a surprise none the less.
• Overdrive was easy to setup, and my Mom quickly figured out how to rent and read books from her local library. Free books from authors she wants to read -- this was perfect. This is definitely her first killer app on the device. It also made me especially happy to know that she could make good use of the device without being forced to purchase stuff (be it books or other content).
• Skype works well on the device. The lack of a forward facing camera was the reason we held off on getting her the first edition of the Kindle Fire. I'm glad we waited.
• I thought the Fire would be an especially useful device for my Mom because she doesn't have an Android Smart Phone. Now she has a platform to run Android apps from, and she doesn't need to give up her well-understood text'ing friendly cell phone.
• I didn't play with the device long enough to see any negatives. Especially when you consider the relatively low cost of the device, there's an awful lot to like.

Any observations you'd like to share?

My Favorite Piece of Hurricane Sandy Gear

I'm pleased to say we made it through Hurricane Sandy unscathed. There was a whole lot of wind and rain, but for us personally, not a whole lot of impact. The extent of our storm cleanup consisted of me picking up our trash cans that had gotten blown over.

We did, however, lose power last night as were heading off to bed. When I awoke, the power was back on and the wind had died down.

The power outage was short, but it did enlighten me to my favorite piece of gear for this storm: glow sticks. Specifically the 8" rope kind that's meant to be worn by kids as a bracelet or combined to form a necklace.

Whenever the power goes out at night, even if I have a flashlight at the ready (which I did last night), I'm always amazed at just how dark the house is. Between nightlights and lots of devices with glowing LED's, there's a fair bit of ambient light that's always present. When the power goes, so does ever last bit of light.

By snapping 8 different lights to life, I was able to drop them strategically around the up stairs - be it in near the toilet, sink or just a few in the hallway to light the way for our 7 year old. The result was a nice glow that made getting around much easier.

This morning I considered ordering some real chem lights, but I'm actually thinking the toy ones worked better. First off, having a large quantity (*100* for $9.00) means that it's a no brainer to bust out a handful, and the low light production means they work as night lights.

How about yourself - any gear make getting through the storm less painful?

Waiting for Hurricane Sandy

We're just hanging out, waiting for Sandy to show up. It's been raining steadily since last night and the wind seems to be picking up. A few minutes ago, we received this surprisingly frank e-mail from Arlington Alert:

Hurricane Sandy is about to get worse.

Think of the derecho storm with high winds in June that lasted 24 minutes. The winds we’re about to experience beginning this afternoon are like the derecho, but they will last for 24 hours.

To paraphrase: Instead of 24 minutes of dangerous winds, it will be 24 hours of dangerous conditions.

This is about to get real.

Some photos from our morning as we waited...

Our little guy (with some help from me) put together a house castle for his latest stuffed pet, Rex (thanks Mom!). Shira baked bread. David made a chollent. And I went from the back of the house to the front of the house snapping photos. Hopefully these will be uneventful "before" photos.

Everything is closed, yet mail showed up in our mailbox today. Well done US Post Office, well done.

---

From design to full execution:

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What are the odds that the power stays on long enough for the chollent to cook all the way through? At least we'll have fresh bread throughout this event.

---

Apparently, you can add "hurricane" to the list of things that won't slow down the post office:

Stay safe. Stay dry.

Arlington meeting Sandy - Not as freaked out as I'd expect

I'm actually a little surprised how calm the folks in the region seem to be. I usually use the bread isle at Giant as a measure of how scared folks are, and there was still an impressive selection at 4pm today.

Earlier today at Cost Co nobody was hoarding batteries or flashlights (not to mention 40lb bags of rice) -- people just seemed to be doing their normal Sunday thing.

So folks are either prepared for Sandy and ready to take her in stride, or they are completely ignorant. Seriously, I've seen more tension from a few inches of snow than I have for this massive and unprecedented storm.

Right now, my biggest stressor is that school and work is closed tomorrow, and I've got code I was hoping to work on. With folks around the house that probably won't happen. Ahhh, the joy of

Dental Floss Hacks, Prison Edition

Knowing my appreciation of Dental Floss Shira passed me this article: Jailers worry about dental floss as a weapon:

Experts say floss, or the plastic holder it sometimes comes in, has been used to strangle enemies, to escape, to saw through bars, to pick handcuffs, to make a hand grip on a shank and to hoist contraband from one level of cells to another.

"These inmates can make a weapon out of a chewing gum wrapper," said Steven Kayser, whose company sells a floss product advertised as prison-safe. "Floss is right up there on the danger list."

I remember the first time I saw someone list dental floss in their EDC and thinking it was some kind of joke. Given enough time and floss, even an 18 foot wall can't stand in your way:

In 1994, Robert Shepard used a floss rope braided as a telephone cord to scale an 18-foot wall at the South Central Regional Jail in West Virginia. He was on the lam for about five weeks. He was already being disciplined for scraping away the mortar between bricks in his cell.

One practical tip from the article: apparently the waxed stuff is the stronger variety. Good to know.

Review: Kum Long Point Pencil Sharpener

I never really gave much thought to pencil sharpeners. That is until we had a 7 year old come to live with us. At that point, #2 pencils became an essential home work imlement (oh, the joy of being able to erase!), and quickly there after we needed a way to keep them sharp.

I naively assumed that any old sharpener would do. Oh how wrong I was. The random sharpeners around, and even the one that came in the Boy's School Supply kit, were all unimpressive. I'd find myself grinding away with some random sharpener, and before I knew it, the pencil was half the size it had started, and still no closer to being usable.

Shira apparently picked up on this, and unbeknownst to me, purchased a Kum Long Point pencil sharpener from Amazon. While it looks sort of new age, it didn't really perform any better than any other sharpeners we had lying around.

Then one day it hit me -- the "1" and "2" next to the sharpening holes weren't for two different size pencils. They were for two different stages of sharpening!.

I fed a pencil into stage one, careful to stop when the lead hit the "stop" label.

Then I cranked it through stage two. It didn't appear to be doing much, but I played along.

To my shock, I pulled out the pencil and found a razor sharp point. And to my joy, I found that I could repeat the process with any old pencil we had lying around. And not only that, but the setup is quite efficient, requiring just a few turns in each spot to get the desired shape.

So there you have it, a pencil sharpener so impressive it can prompt me to write a review and includes words like "joy" and "efficient." That means it has to be good.

So if you find yourself dwelling on dull pencils, have a got a solution for you! Bonus: it's compact, non-electric and relatively inexpensive.

I can't resist sharing at least one picture...

Caption Me - Walking to the Bus Stop Edition

I love that we're now catching the tail end of sunrise on our way to the bus stop. Sure, it's getting chillier in the morning, but the light show makes it worth it.

I'm tempted to to start bringing my DSLR to capture what I'm seeing, but for today my Android myTouch 4G had to do:

So, nu - what's the caption for this guy?

25 Things My Mom Can Do With Her New Kindle Fire

Happy Birthday Mom!

I know what you're thinking -- how sweet of my children to buy me this fancy new ... Thing. Now what should I do with it? Glad you asked! Here's 25 ideas to get you started using your Kindle Fire HD:

1. Skype with your grandchildren
2. E-mail your children
3. read a book
4. Play Angry Birds
5. Listen to NPR
6. Finish watching a Netflix show you started on your TV
7. Check the weather
8. Create the perfect radio station that plays just music you like
9. Track all that walking you do
10. Watch movies for free
11. Rent books from the local library
12. Sketch out your next craft idea
13. Track your personal finances
14. Prepare a new recipe
15. Keep notes on the next shul fundraiser you're in charge of
16. Organize and share your calendar
17. Find out when candle lighting times are
18. Start a blog
19. Read your son's blog
20. Find a new restaurant to try
21. Plan your next vacation
22. Corner strangers with cute pictures of your grandkids
23. Enterintain a toddler
24. Brush up on your Hebrew skills
25. Do some brain exercises

And I'm sure you'll come up with even more ideas!

Happy Birthday Mom, we sure do love you!

Making A $2.00 Write Anywhere Nano-Sized Pen

This weekend I picked up a Listo Pencil for $2.00 at my favorite variety store. The Listo is a marking pencil, sort of like a grease pencil. Like a crayon, it'll write on nearly anything - paper, plastic, metal, wood, etc. It's not particularly permanent, but that can be a good thing too.

Naturally, I couldn't resist taking the pencil apart to see the guts, and realized that the "lead" is relatively small. That got me thinking, could I turn this guy into super compact writing implement?

Here's what I did:

1. Popped out the pencil lead
2. Cut a piece of plastic straw the same length of the lead
3. Sliced the plastic straw lengthwise
4. Slid the lead into the straw
5. Wrapped the straw tightly around the lead
6. Every so gently, took a lit lighter to the straw, melting and sealing snipped seam of the straw (my gosh that melts quickly!)

Here's a few snapshots of the process:

The whole process took less than 8 minutes to do, and the result is amazingly usable.

To finish off the project, I grabbed a few index cards and cut them to fit my Urban Survival Kit. The cards and pencil effortlessly fit in the kit:

As hacks go, I'm especially pleased with this one. Now I've got this handy write-anywhere pen on me whenever I grab my Altoids Tin (which is whenever I've got pocket space for it). And $2.00 is actually the high end for this project, apparently I can buy a box of 72 Listo refills for $9.00, which means that these can be made for about $0.13 each.

A Halloween Idea - Braincandy!

I do love a lightweight crowd sourced art project, and last night it hit me that we could do an easy one for Halloween. Here's how it would work:

• Pick up a whole bunch of tiny Playdoh containers (ideally from the dollar store, but Amazon would do too)
• Print out a series of small labels that say something like:

  How about some candy for your brain? Make something great using this Playdoh and other supplies you can find around the house. and have your parents send a picture of it to: braincandy2012@gmail.com. See what others have created and learn more at braincandy2012.tumblr.com. Share your creation, and view what others have made at braincandy2012 tasty-braincandy.tumblr.com sharemycreation.com.
  -Ben (Contact.Ben.Simon@gmail.com)

• Apply a label to each small container of Playdoh
• Come Halloween night, hand out candy and a Playdoh container to teach kid
• Sit back and watch the creativity burst forth!

Simple enough, right?

I probably won't go through with it, though. There's just something creepy about the whole thing - right?

Still, I do feel like I'm missing out on an opportunity to think outside the box here...

Update: Reworded the label text, taking out the e-mail request. That seems to tone down the creepiness a bit. I believe Tumblr allows for user submitted content easily enough, so the project would still be easy enough to put together.

Update: No need to include 2012 in the URL. And while I'm at it, why not reserve space in case I want to actually go through with this idea.

Update: OK, so here's a better domain name: sharemycreation.com.

Review: Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike

Everything you think you know about riding your bike is wrong. Everything. At least that's what the thesis of Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike by Grant Petersen appears to be.

The ultralight bike isn't better. You don't need special bike shorts or shoes. You have too many gears. Forget being predictable, you want safety? Ride like a wobbly newbie. Petersen even makes a case for leaving your bike helmet at home.

The theme of the book is that the biking industry encourages people to emulate a Tour De France rider, which for most people is a costly and uncomfortable mistake. You should ride for comfort and utility, not to eek out miles and save seconds. And this book can help you do it.

I found the whole perspective to be quite refreshing and I think the advice will help make the kind of riding I actually do more pleasant. If you're getting back into riding, or feel like you've gotten off course, this is the book to read. If you get a thrill from playing weekend racer, you should probably skip it -- you'll probably just find yourself yelling at the text.

Xmarks: The Cause Of, And Solution To, All My Bookmarking Woes

Last Friday afternoon I noticed that the bookmark toolbar on one of my browsers was empty. It's usually filled with essential links. No problem I think, I must have just hidden it or something.

By Sunday, I notice I now have two problems: (a) the bookmarks aren't hidden, they are *gone* and (b) thanks to the magical power of Xmarks, they are gone on every browser instance and laptop I own.

This is seriously not good news.

I have no idea how I managed to delete all my bookmarks without noticing. And usually Xmarks complains when a big change (like hundreds of bookmarks disappearing) occurs.

Apparently the synchronization system worked too well, and I managed to replicate my goof all over the place.

It was at this point that Shira offered me the classic advice one receives in a computer crash scenario: "you know, you really should back up your bookmarks so this doesn't happen." Yeah, thanks babe. Solid advice.

All hope wasn't lost though. An account of mine on Shira's laptop hadn't been accessed in a while, so it didn't auto-sync itself to destruction. I disabled wifi from the laptop (so it wouldn't perform a sync without me knowing it) and instructed Xmarks to re-launch the wizard. While doing this I had the option to drop my server bookmarks and load the ones I'd saved locally.

Disaster averted.

I then logged into Xmarks to see how I could perform a backup. Turns out, you can't.

Not because they the system isn't full featured, but because you don't need to. By accessing: My Bookmarks > Tools > Explore & Restore Old Bookmarks..., I was able to see nearly every change to my bookmarks since 6/11/2010 and trivially restore any of those versions.

Well what do you know, Xmarks totally amazes me again. Not only do they provide a seamless bookmark solution, but they make recovering from a massive mixup almost trivial to do.

Not Exactly a Kodak Moment

I was peeking at Mitt Romney's flickr stream and came across this photo:

Am I missing something, or is this a photo he probably doesn't want in his stream? Seriously, shouldn't the person who posts these photos, read them too?

For more Romney goofiness, check out these sites. The second one is especially clever.

Date Night, Georgetown Edition

Shira and I had Date Night tonight - we went all out and arranged for a sitter and made our way to D.C.

After take a pleasant stroll through Georgetown (which was surprisingly quiet), we hit upon Harmony Cafe. I suffered a massive case of menu analysis-paralysis, as nearly everything they offer can be made in a vegetarian form, and it all looked great. What a hidden gem, and so close to Arlington.

After dinner, I gorged myself on Pinkberry and it was time to call it an evening.

Date-wise, I think I did OK. I lost points for slurping my soup, but surely I had witty banter to make up for it? Yeah, probably not.

Here's a tip: pull into Georgetown at 6:29pm on a weeknight. At 6:30pm, the on street parking is available and plentiful. I assume by 6:34pm it's all gone.

I grabbed a few photos as we stepped out of our car. What a wonderful night. I'm definitely calling this chick back, I've got a feeling about this one.