They have Grandmaster Flash's seal of approval*

I bought two of these A4 Whitelines notebooks, and I think I'm going to have to go out and buy a lifetime supply just in case they stop making them. The gimmick is that the pages have very faint gray squares, which leaves a grid of white lines. So it's an inverse engineer's quadrille pad, and it's absolutely wonderful. Ten times better than a moleskin.

*not that I'm such a fan of that song, or even of old school rap.  It gets name dropped by hipper than thou music nerds, and next thing you know, they're droning on about how much they like Dario Argento films or somesuch schock. Just like I am right now.

Nuts and bolts

I've really enjoyed Dan Edmunds's posts on car and truck suspensions.  They are the raw bits of gear head gnarliness.  Check out the new Ford SVT Raptor, which is an absolute monster - as you'll see at the end, those tires & wheels weigh in at nearly a hundred pounds each. Yikes.  If citified driving is more your style, take a look at the BMW M3,  Nissan GT-R,  Dodge Challenger R/T (with Nivomats!), Ford Focus SES, or the Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

I've also picked up a copy of Allan Staniforth's Competition Car Suspension, and soon I'll be able to spot an improperly adjusted coil-over damper at fifty paces.  This is partly motivated by curiosity and partly because I'd like to upgrade the springs and dampers on my own car, which lists sharply to the leeward in a curve and understears like there's no tommorrow, and not achieve the usual perversion of spending a lot of money to look-fast-but-drive-worse-and-slower aftermarket dumbness.

The smartest thing ever?

Well, not really, but still: Keychain key.

Them!

A nifty microscopic composite image of an ant. And happily, GigaPan does not have a natural language interface. Many more such images here at the Nano GigaPan blog.

(Excuse my minor tick* - electron microscopes and microscopists tend to label images by magnification, e.g., 250X - I dislike that. Since the microscope has some fixed display size, this kinda makes sense, but even then not really. Are you supposed to get a ruler out, hold it up to the screen, and then divide by the magnification? And for some resized image on the web, the label is meaningless. It would be better to put in a scale bar on each image, or label it by the feature resolution in any image, limited either by the microscope resolution or the pixel size. End rant)

*ha ha, not an ant.

Brilliant!

Swiss Army Kitchen Utensil Holder

That's kinda genius

Belkin USB in-car charger

Cars should already have this, but frankly, good enough.

I need all the help I can get

30 tips to make you look smart

Give until you notice it

The annual charity drive is going on where I work (and no, my salary doesn't count), so I went to the useful Charity Navigator for guidance. I like Project Heifer, and I also made a point to give to the Red Cross, which was hammered by the two hurricanes this year, but without the concomitant rise in pledges that came with Katrina.

And that'll do it for my public square good-works boasting, since charity is often more about the benefactor's ego or need to feel necessary than it is about helping other people. I'm not sure that's wrong or unfortunate, but it does reflect a lack of self-awareness. (which I do not lack here, and so I feel better about myself, which I also recognize as egotism, which I also am aware of, and hence feel better about myself, and meta-so-forth.. Quite the hall of mirrors, huh?)(See, it's already all about me.)

The anti-Segwey

One of these power-trowels has been working on the building next door. It is indeed just cool, as it slides and spins across the surface. It's amazing that someone gets paid to ride this thing.

Get on your bikes and ride!

Derringer Cycles - Hybrid Bikes

The handle bars look a little low, and like a sportbike, leaning so far forward might get old after awhile. Otherwise, killer vintage look. I am tempted. It also looks very DIY-able, if one were so inclined.

Micro-tape dispenser

I kinda want one: Micro-tape dispenser.

Nifty houses

Free house plans. They're pretty nice, although I'd raise the ceiling heights in some of them. Wide, long rooms with low ceilings feel off to me, even if they are more energy efficient.

The next step is getting a slave to peel my grapes

I feel odd mentioning this, but I bought a cheap-o citrus juicer the other day, and each morning since I have made myself a glass of fresh Auger. It's not much more expensive, if at all, than the bottled OJ, and it's way better in the morning screwdriver. Fantastic!

Mind controlled prosthetic arm

That's kinda cool: Mind controlled prosthetic arm.

Them!

For Laura, How to get rid of ants (without calling the exterminator). Rusty Shackleford could not be reached for comment.

First Step - Set up free blog

Cool Tools is cool: The Personal MBA

I once dabbled with the idea of getting an MBA. After a life avoiding any work in a business, I wanted to start one of my own and knew zero about it. Like many folks, I thought a heavy-duty school program would cure my ignorance and inexperience. But an official MBA degree can easily cost $100,000. I figured out I would learn more spending $500 in self-education. So I devoted $200 for books and the other $300 actually starting a small mail-order business (the fee went for an ad). In two years I learned more about how business really worked than any MBA graduate I had met. No matter what they tell you, an MBA is not essential for landing or handling a good business job. The chief "skill" you'll come away by your degree is a diploma, and a network of indebted friends in business. The latter is actually useful.

Step two eludes me, but step three is Profit!

Pear Budget

I've been working an Ebenizer Christmas eve, going through my finances, and I've found Pear Budget a handy excel worksheet template. The ghost of Christmas past pointed out that their web 2.0 announcement has been up for awhile, so I think their progress there has tapered off a bit. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my plans to build a large vault/swimming pool for my future Krugerrands.

The Woodwright's Shop

PBS is now streaming the 26th season of Roy Underhill's show, the Woodwright's Shop. [via] How neat is that? He always had that 70's get off the grid vibe, a la Tom and Barbara, where you live in a solar heated straw-house geodesic dome and try to figure out what to do with the 500 lbs of zuchini you over-planted. Know what I mean, M. & D.?

Nifty Bag

I bought a new briefcase the other day, the Tom Bihn Zephyr, and it's pretty sweet if I may pat myself on the back for being such an savvy briefcase purchaser, and I will, so thanks.

The Zepher is well put together, fashioned from Cordura and ballistics nylon with adamantine #10 zippers. You could toss a hand grenade in there, and all you would hear is a little "poof".

poof

See? Anyway, at $140, it isn't cheap, but it should last 10 plus years.

Transparency

Rate car dealers at Edmunds.com. Caveat venditor.