Homemade Laundry Soap

Awhile back I had come across some information about making your own laundry detergent. Like most things, I can't remember why or what first got me on the idea, but it looked reasonable and very economical (two things that really appeal to me). There was a move in the near future though, and the timing seemed rather poor. Fast forward a few months and the new house is nearly set up and the thought came up again accompanied by the inevitable 'now where did I see all that?' problems. Some minutes of searching later and I find a lifehacker entry and that Instructables, the Simple Dollar, Backwoods Home Magazine, and the Duggar Family all had their own takes on soap making. It seems you can use any number of different soaps as a base and that if you are interested you can even make your own castille liquid soap as a base for the laundry detergent. Recipes seemed to vary widely and some experimentation will likely be needed. Well, looks like it may be time to give this a try.

Stormdrane's Blog

Every once in awhile I come across something really useful and creative or really creative and useful or some mix in between. Stormdrane has found a good balance with his knot tying posts. Tying knifes, bottles, canes and various other items with decorative and functional handles seems to be his forte. I have done a bit of work with such things, but do not have his flair or creativity. Take a look and be inspired.

Turn a Shoe Organizer into a Vertical Herb Garden - Gardening - Lifehacker

Neat idea on how to grow some herbs. Lifehacker has this idea on how to turn a shoe organizer into a vertical herb garden. Always interesting to see innovation.

Measure the Readability of Your Documents and E-mails | the Corporate Geek

I don't always like every "feature" of MS Office and when it is so unaffordable (>$75, yeah, I am cheap) I do use Open Office. However, it can have some interesting tools and tricks that can help you write better or present data in an understandable way. Corporate Geek (I found the link on Lifehacker) has an article on how to Measure the Readability of Your Documents and E-mails. I need to read more to understand the metrics it is using, but it looks helpful.

How Big is the Solar System?

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (no I hadn't heard of them either) posted an article a few years ago concerning problems associated with visualizing the distances and sizes associated with the solar system. I had been thinking about this for a few days and this was very helpful. Hundreds of yards of space and planets the size of peppercorns... Wow. Just, wow.

NetFlix Origami - Recycle Paper

Origami is hardly a new art form or hobby, but Netflix is a bit newer. Mix them together though and what do you get? NetFlix Origami! I haven't tried any of these yet, but I thought they were a nifty use of what would otherwise just get thrown in the recycling bin (you do recycle don't you? :0 ). Unfortunately, I am probably not creative enough to come up with any of my own.

DIY - Energy Drink, EnerT � Bold-Italic-Underline

Saw something mentioned (maybe over on Lifehacker) about DIY energy drinks. I ended up following a few links and then ran across this fellow's post that summarized the "EnerT" recipe. The original blog post seems to be limited to invited readers only, so I was pretty happy to see that Askar chose to put the original in his post, due to his own distrust of exterior links. I figure I will do the same since he appears to have moved on also.

"EnerT Ingredients (32 oz or about 1 liter):

* 2 Tea Bags
* 6 level teaspoon sugar (24 grams)
* A pinch of salt (0.5 grams)
* 2 oz lemon juice (about 55 grams)
* 30 oz boiling water

Contains:

* 100 calories
* 500 mg Sodium
* 60mg of Potassium (from the lemon juice)
* Caffeine varies, est 100mg-200mg caffeine (depending on the tea used and infusion duration)

Estimated Cost:

* Lemon juice: $0.10
* 2 Tea Bags: $0.06
* Sugar, Salt, water, etc: negligible

Compare to 32 oz Gatorade:

* 200 calories
* 440mg Sodium
* 120mg Potassium
* No caffeine
* Cost: $1.29

Seems the overall plan is to brew some tea and then add sugar, salt and lemon juice... I thought to myself, "Where is the rocket science in that, but then looked at it compared to Gatorade and realized there isn't a whole lotta difference. Have to try this soon.

New Propulsion Options From China?

According to Wired.com the Chinese may have developed a new type of propulsion for satellites and other space vehicles. I believe "Mars in 41 days" was thrown about in there somewhere. I have no idea if it is possible, but it might be interesting to keep an eye on it. I am trying to recall major scientific advances made recently and haven't come up with any so far that would rival this, if it is true.

WiFi freeloader arrested in Washington

I am not surprised that this happened. The article posits the idea that an unsecured network wants to share. I think that might be a stretch the same as the alarmist reporting that they condemn earlier in the article is. Anyway, I thought this was interesting, as I had just read a post about if not paying for internet at an airport wifi hotspot was stealing or not. Most people seemed to be arguing the idea that the airport is rich and doesn't deserve their money. Odd view point seeing as how they don't have to use the internet...

Schneier on LifeLock

Bruce Schneier spoke out today concerning the personal data security firm LifeLock. LifeLock is the firm that offers to guard you against identity theft and uses the founder's Social Security Number on its ads to show how certain the firm is that they can protect you. I have been somewhat doubting of their claims. I am not convinced that what they offer is needed or economical. It seems more than anything that they are preying on nervous or fearful people.
On a slightly different note, although I generally agree with Bruce on many topics, I question one of the conclusions he had in this article. He felt that one of the best ways to improve identity security was require everyone to get the same protection offered by getting a credit alert placed on individual accounts. Namely, he feels that if the credit companies had to verify credit requests and identities of persons requesting accounts. I feel like much of the security offered by these steps works more b/c there are those that do not have them in place. If everyone had these precautions in place then the protection would be somewhat negated b/c each target would be equal in difficulty rather than some being "low hanging fruit".
I don't feel like I explained that very well. Can't seem to think very well.

One of the Best Treatments of Piracy I Have Ever Seen

Some of the most vitriolic arguments seen on the internet (outside of religion and politics) concern software piracy. People tend to take this very personally. This guy manages to reasonably cover and refute many of the reasons people give for stealing software and without getting too preachy or pedantic. It is refreshing to see an article like How to Not Be a Software Pirate... makes me think there are still useful things to read on the internet.

For when you think, "Gee I wonder how I could make..."

The wikiHow page is something of a cross between wikipedia.com (the bane of traditional journalists and encyclopedia salesman everywhere) and any number of How-to sites (Howtoons being one of my favorites). If you need some ideas on how to do something or you are just board and looking for some new ideas for projects, wikiHow is an interesting place to start.

Ace Hardware Breaks New Ground in Physics!

According to a recent press release Ace Hardware, in conjunction with Presto canners has managed to make a device able to create a stable link to alternate dimensions. These dimensions can be used to do amazing new feats such as canning 16 GALLONS of material in what would normally be 16 quarts of space. This new functionality shows a four fold increase in capacity. Researchers may be looking at this new technology to aid in particle physics research at areas such as the LHC and other high tech facilities. Look for new breakthroughs at http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com!

Social Engineering Strikes Again

Angela Valdez of the Washington City Paper recently publish a story on the multi-year crime spree of Ameenah Franks. Franks did not pull bank jobs or white collar stock market scams. She did not deal in any large scale frauds or violent robberies. She took relatively small amounts of money (the cash she found at the time) from people she had never met before. How did she manage this? By doing something that I have said for years is a major vulnerability in any security system, acting like you belong.
She walked into numerous building around the DC area and casually searched through desk drawers, file cabinets and common areas nabbing the cash that she found. Citing her intelligence as one of her greatest success factors, she would not only not avoid confrontations (a standard practice for most people when gaining illegal access), but actually would make a point of talking to people. Although caught a number of times and now serving time for her continued thefts, it is not immediately clear how much she has stolen over the years.
To me, more than any purported intelligence, her arrogance seems to play a large part in what she did. She, like many people who knowingly commit criminal acts, justified her actions in numerous ways. It appears that these justifications fed back into her assessment of her own intelligence (I know this is wrong, but this is why it is ok. Other people around me didn't think of it this way, which proves me to be smarter). The confidence in confrontations also seems to be more based in arrogance than anything else. It could be argued that without a healthy (or unhealthy depending on your viewpoint) dose of confident self image one could not pull off the thefts that she did, but it seems that one of the larger reasons she was caught was because she continued to make mistakes based on her belief that she was smart enough to get away with it all. In the end her pattern of behavior and a few persistent and rightly suspicious people put a stop (at least temporarily) to her thieving spree.

Annoying Backgrounds

I used to read The J-walk Blog fairly regularly, but eventually his religion bashing got old and I wandered away to other sites (hey, it is his site and he is welcome to do as he pleases just as I am free to read it or not). Anyway, I stumbled across a post of his the other day that reminded me of a conversation some coworkers and I had a few months back. We were discussing ways to make a web page that was required reading as annoying as possible. Call it a mean streak, but at least we didn't follow through (or at least I have not). Little did I know how truly annoying a page could be. Take a look at some of these backgrounds, but don't blame me if you end up with a headache.

Give One Get One - OLPC

The One Laptop Per Child Initiative is working to provide access to technology widely available to many children already to those in countries developing around the world. The OLPC XO laptop is designed to provide a adaptable power supply, wifi compatible computer at under $100 per machine. That goal is only able to be reached at this point by large quantity orders at this time, but various other programs are in use to finance the distribution of these laptops.
One of these is the Give One Get One option. This allows individuals to purchase an XO to be donated to a child in another country and have one delivered to themselves as well. This is not a desktop replacement, but it is not necessarily a novelty item either. An added bonus is that Tmobile is offering one year of hotspot access to anyone who participates. So basically for $400 you donate a laptop to a child in a developing nation, you get one for yourself and you get around $240 worth of hotspot access. Not a bad deal all in all. Oh, and you can claim $200 as a charitable contribution on your taxes. How is that for a good deal?

A Real Life BattleMech, Sort Of

This is a reprint of an older article. I am not sure the original is even posted. But the long and the short of all this is that this fellow, Jim "Starfury", built a scaled down version of a MadCat BattleMech for his kids. (Of course it was for his kids... what kind of grown man would build an 18 foot wood and metal model of a 31st century 80 ton war machine... ok, so maybe it wasn't only for his kids!)

Anyway, he and his buddies spent who knows how long designing and building this thing and as such projects often go it went well beyond their initial plans and expectations. Nearly growing to large for the garage it was mostly built in and the fence it had to be moved through, this behemoth consumed months of time and numerous trips to Home Depot (or a locationally closer, similar store).

But, as you can imagine and see from the pictures, it was probably worth every minute.

Facts About the "Surge" In US Troops

The Bird of Paradise Blog put up another good entry lately. I have not had the chance to read his references, but I have found him in the past to be generally trustworthy. The post is speaking about the "Surge" In US Troops for Iraq that President Bush called for recently. It is my opinion that things may not be great in Iraq, but perhaps they are not as hopeless as some believe.

A User's Guide to the Declaration of Independence

As with any site dealing with politics or history, this site has a bias, but the information is there for your study and much of the content is factual in nature (the Declaration of Independence and multiple references and quotes from other sources). The parent site is the Claremont Institute, which I believe I have blogged before, but memory is failing me for sure. None the less, if you have never actually read or studied the DoI, I encourage you to take a look at founding.com's website - A User's Guide to the Declaration of Independence. I don't like the set-up really, but the information is what I think is important.

Teratogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, the "redesign" post previous to this one is now out of date. Darn it. Anywho, the word for the day (this is in no way a guarantee, implied or otherwise, of any future words of the day, week, month, etc.) is teratogenesis. I can't remember where I ran across this word in browsing the web today, seeing as how my blissful browsing was interrupted by the reality of needing to unpack the last 20 or so boxes of Move Around the World 2004-2007. Although, I don't mind seeing various parts of God's creation (could do with a bit less desert all in all, but it all has its uses), I am really not fond of the constant need to unpack and place worldy belongings in a semi-organized fashion around the house. I like the end result... now that I think about it, it is similar to children, I like having them and all, for the most part, but if it were reliant upon me to plan their birth and all that, I probably still would not have gotten around to it yet...

Wow, how is that for a rambling, off topic post?