A photo gallery documenting the production of a wooden Vespa.
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Viewing entries tagged
HowTo
Tim Burke's list of necessary life skills.
How Internet works.
Answer: Easy, "It's a series of tubes!"
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeu6bXxTwfk&fmt=18] [Via]
Kevin Merritt writes:
9. Do extracurricular work that showcases your abilities. What’s better than telling a prospective employer how good you are? Show them! If you’re a software engineer, contribute on an open source project, develop an iPhone application or develop a robust website. If you’re an online marketer, prove your good by showing me that you have a site that gets a lot of traffic. I met a man earlier this year who’s a program manager at Microsoft. He wanted to move into a new role as a marketer, but didn’t have any day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft that showed he could do the job. So he bought a domain and set up a website dedicated to Caribbean travel. Soon it was attracting lots of traffic and ranked high in organic search. It was a great way to show doubters that he was qualified.
10. Avoid being laid off in the first place. Last but not least, don’t relinquish the pole position. An incumbent has an edge. It’s easier to keep a job than find one. We’re hearing about companies cutting 25% or 33% of their headcount. That means you need to be in the top 67% or 75% to avoid a pink slip. Other than an entire plant, division or office closure, the decisions about whom to keep and whom to let go are based on performance, salary and redundancy of position. Boost your performance by getting meaningful things done. Come in earlier. Stay later. Be more visible. Start sending your boss weekly status reports showing your accomplishments. Exhibit leadership.
[Thanks Kaizar!]
Two Inuit men (not Eskimos, you insensitive pricks) demonstrate how to build an igloo. From the National Film Board of Canada:
This is old news for a couple Alaskans like myself and Clay. Building an igloo was a high school graduation requirement for us.
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On the heels of the recent terror in Mumbai, Jeff Goldberg lists 6 tips for surviving an attack on your hotel. Interesting read.
1) Avoid big hotels. I stopped staying at the Marriott in Islamabad years and years ago. It was fairly well-protected, as hotels go - not like the hotels in Amman, though not terrible - but it was an obvious target, a supersized American hotel in a country boiling with anti-American feeling. Terrorists tend not to waste time on small targets; they're trying to maximize the body count and hit targets of maximum symbolic value at the same time.
2) If you can't help but stay at a behemoth, order room service whenever possible. This minimizes your exposure to restaurants located off the lobby. Obviously, the lobby is the most dangerous place in a hotel; it is akin to the security lines at American airports, which are prime targets for suicide bombers precisely because they're entirely insecure.
3) Ask for a room on the 4th, 5th or 6th floors, unless you're reasonably sure the fire department in the city you're visiting doesn't have ladders that reach up to six. I try to be high enough to escape whatever chaos might occur on the ground floor, but not so high that I can't be reached. I'm always of two or three minds on this question; it's also not a bad idea to stay on a floor close enough to the ground that a jump will leave you with broken legs and nothing more.
4) Make two plans the moment you set foot in your room. Figure out how you're going to escape, and figure out, alternatively, how you're going to survive a siege. If escape isn't an option - say, you believe that men are roaming the floors with automatic weapons - try to figure out what you're going to use to fortify your room. In certain parts of the world - well, two - I'll barricade myself in my room at night, using a desk or dresser. This is dangerous, of course, in the event of fire. But I measure the risk. In dodgy places, fill your bathtub, if you have one, with water; it will come in handy if you can't leave (and, of course, if there's fire outside your door). Always travel with a flashlight, utility knife (they're easy to sneak past TSA), matches, and a few energy bars. Know where your shoes are, as well as your passport and money, just in case you have to get out in the dark. Also, identify a lamp or other piece of furniture that could be used as a weapon of last resort.
5) Set up tell-tales in your room before you leave for the day; I use a discreetly-placed length of dental floss to make sure no one's tampering with my laptop. It's always good to know if somebody's been poking around your stuff.
6) Stay in hotels that have already been bombed or otherwise attacked. Mumbai is a fairly safe place for travelers right now. And visiting India soon sends a message that civilization cannot be defeated by terror. But that's another subject.
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Some helpful and even inspirational tips on surviving a free fall.
Snow is good—soft, deep, drifted snow. Snow is lovely. Remember that you are the pilot and your body is the aircraft. By tilting forward and putting your hands at your side, you can modify your pitch and make progress not just vertically but horizontally as well. As you go down 15,000 feet, you can also go sideways two-thirds of that distance—that's two miles! Choose your landing zone. You be the boss.If your search discloses no trees or snow, the parachutist's "five-point landing" is useful to remember even in the absence of a parachute. Meet the ground with your feet together, and fall sideways in such a way that five parts of your body successively absorb the shock, equally and in this order: feet, calf, thigh, buttock, and shoulder. 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed at which experienced parachutists land. There will be some bruising and breakage but no loss of consciousness to delay your press conference. Just be sure to apportion the 120-mph blow in equal fifths. Concentrate!
Much will depend on your attitude. Don't let negative thinking ruin your descent. If you find yourself dwelling morbidly on your discouraging starting point of seven miles up, think of this: Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Thirty feet! It's nothing! Pity the poor sod who falls from such a "height." What kind of planning time does he have?
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On the next shuttle mission to the International Space Station NASA will be testing their new $250 million "water recovery system." Designed to resupply the station's water by recycling approximately 93 percent of the water on board, "urine, sweat in the air, waste water and other forms of moisture will be fed into the system, distilled and sent back to the tap"
So, again — how does it taste? Your intrepid reporter opened one of the bottles of “Purified Recycled Water” that Mr. Bagdigian brought with him. The wryly worded label was a little intimidating: “We use only the finest ingredients! Urine, Perspiration, Food Vapors, Bath Water, Simulated Animal Waste, and a touch of Iodine. No Carbs or Calories Added.”With that as my verbal drum roll, I took a sip. Aside from a slight tang of iodine, it tasted like, well, water. I’ve had tap water that tasted much more like things I don’t want to think about.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Whimsical color-it-yourself wallpaper by Jon Burgerman which you can purchase here. It goes without saying, but I WANT THIS.
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The political compass questionnaire tests your political leanings on not just an economic left and right axis but on an authoritarian and libertarian axis as well. At the end you can compare where you stack up against political notables from Stalin to Margaret Thatcher. My result:
Economic Left/Right: -3.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.28
I'm not trying to imply anything, but I'm pretty darn close to Ghandi.
AND the Dalai Lama.
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Popular Mechanics list of 101 skills every man should know. I can do the following. I am man. Here me roar.
2. Drive in snow 10. Perform the Heimlich 12. Perform hands-only CPR 13. Escape a sinking car 15. Use a sewing machine 16. Put out a fire 19. Move heavy stuff 22. Shovel the right way 30. Prune bushes and small trees 31. Iron a shirt 36. Set up a ladder, safely 49. Make a drum-tight bed 50. Drop and give the perfect pushup 66. Lend a hand 73. Tie a necktie 74. Whittle 75. Ride a bike 77. Take the perfect portrait 78. Calibrate HDTV settings 79. Shoot a home movie 80. Ditch your hard drive
Sadly, "blogging" did not make the cut.
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The following quip has been attributed to former British Chancellor Dennis Healey who is believed to have said:
There are three things in life you should never believe: yes, I will still love you in the morning; the cheque is in the post; and hello, I’m a politician and I’m here to help.
Man, ain't that the truth.
If you have trouble expressing yourself verbally adequately during boom boom time or you kill the mood by saying the wrong thing, then this extensive flow chart will be a handy cheat sheet for you the next time she wants you to talk to her. I don't need it though. I have a Ph.D. in this field. Hi-ho!
![flow_sex [Converted]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/2823001157_c973560625_o.jpg)
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